Tiresome Thursday

Wednesday night, after church, clouds rolled in, and it rained for a bit. The rain soon cleared up, but the overcast lingered.

All of Thursday was spent under the covering of clouds. And it was effecting everyone. Everyone was tired, everyone was dragging. Everyone just felt like it was later in the day than it was supposed to be. I at first thought it was more jetlag, but honestly, I'm over it. It was just exhausting to be under crappy weather.

We did Bible study, and ate, and then I went upstairs to do private worship. I instead fell asleep. I was just exhausted. On top of that, I was insanely sore from sports school. I've sinced vowed to get some form of exercise while I'm here, and get in the practice of exercising for when I come home.

After my nap, I knew I needed to go buy some postcards. My grandparents' anniversary was coming up on the 16th. It takes a week to receive something from Korea via snail mail, so I knew that Thursday (the 9th) was the last day I could do so. So, I was heading back to Jonggak, and Insadong.

While at Jonggak, I stopped by a bookstore to buy a couple CD-Rs (The only place I knew that sold them at this point). I wanted to burn a couple CDs for Seol to listen to. It was the only thing, and the very least I could do, to show appreciation for helping me out during worship service.

After that, I headed back to Insadong for the souvenir shops. I found a good set of postcards, and headed out, looking for a place to write them at. I needed a flat desk-like surface to write. Any restaurant in the area was a sit-down restaurant, and I didn't want them to get their hopes up that I was ordering food. The only other place I could think of was somewhere that I knew would be slow at that time of the day, and would have a flat enough surface that I could write, albeit distracted.

I headed to a small arcade in Insadong, and sat at a Tekken cabinet, and wrote out my postcards. It was noisy, but at least it was a good surface to write on. The cabinets are linked, so there's only one set of controls per cabinet, so there is plenty of elbow room, thus making there be plenty of writing room. After writing, I headed for the nearest post office.

The nearest post office was around a 20 minute walk, through the subway and towards Gwanghwamun. I got there, mailed the post cards and left. As I walked out, I had a realization of where exactly I was. Last year, we went to Gwanghwamun Square before going to the presidential palace. In Gwanghwamun Square, they have a statue of King Sejong, the creator of the Korean written language as we know it today. Underneath said statue, was a museum, which I wanted to go to last year. However, due to the fact that we needed to be at Cheongwadae in a short time, we couldn't go. I realized I was a block away from the square, and there was no better time than now to go to this museum. Off we go.

I do not regret this decision at all. What I got to see was truly educational, and things that I would have never known otherwise was brought to light.

Under King Sejong's rule:

-The Korean alphabet was created. This is probably the biggest, most important thing he created. The more I walked through this section, the more I learned. This honestly wasn't haphazardly created. Each consonant served more than just a functional purpose. There was a rhyme to the reason each consonant was created like it was, with every consonant showing the positioning of the tongue and mouth as each consonant is sounded out. I stood there in epiphany mode as I made each sound, and noted where my tongue and mouth was during the pronunciation. It really is remarkable.
-A very advanced sundial was created, that could not only tell the time, but also the seasons, days, months, and so on.
-A notation system for Korean music was created, allowing for advanced notation of music before our modern form of musical notation was widely used.

He was a very strong leader, had a long period of peace, and brought great advances to the world, as well as a strong sense of leadership, but something struck me here. Sejong is highly revered in Korea. His advances are well-known, and he truly did well. However, if you were to say something bad about him, I could guarantee you the backlash would be unmistakable and harsh. I even fear saying that I can't even truly ascertain whether the advances made in his rule were of his own ideas and creation, or whether they were done by members of his court, and he just took credit, or even if they were his ideas, but he had aid by his court members and scholars to bring them to fruition. I just don't know, and I don't know if people in Korea would even know. Just we know what has been taught.

But Koreans hold this man, only a man, in high reverence. Sure, he was a good ruler, but they hold them in almost a place of unshakable esteem, and anyone who challenges this be damned. This makes me wonder how much this reverence towards leaders has shaped this country as a whole.

In the South, it seems like their apathy toward politicians is as strong as in America. I haven't found many people who have positive things to say about Lee Myung-bak. I have found some, but the general apathy reflects America's apathy overall. We were unhappy, collectively, with Bush, but now, we're just as unhappy with Obama. Koreans don't even have the choice of re-electing presidents, as presidents only serve one 5-year term here. So, if they don't like the last guy's job, they elect an opposing party, which sounds similar to America, except for the fact the previous President, unless he is at the end of his second term, can run again.

But this overall apathy is apparent. I haven't heard a bad thing about Syngman Rhee, South Korea's first president. And again, if you tried to detract for Sejong's reign, then you're going against Korean society. When a Korean president makes a mistake, it's almost as if they are trying to initially hold him up to the esteem of Rhee or Sejong. When he fails, he is lowered from that pedestal, and there's no way he can come back from that.

And I'm not pointing fingers squarely at Korea. We do it stateside too. We look at great leaders like Washington, and Lincoln, and Roosevelt, and we hold them up in great esteem. Then we elect leaders who are in no way like those three, and expect them to do great things. When they don't, we thrash them on CNN, Fox News, and the like, until the next leader arrives, and we do the same to him.

But because of this esteem of former leaders, we aren't looking toward the present. This causes apathy toward the government, because they aren't doing the great things of old.

This leads me to North Korea, which is a polar opposite of the apathy we experience. The reverence of King Sejong led to something Kim Il-sung took full advantage of: completely and total blind loyalty to a ruler. If you show promise, then you will be worshipped. After the 38th parallel was sectioned off following the fighting, North Korea's economy rebounded faster than the South's. And because of this, Kim Il-sung is revered. And in affluent areas in North Korea, it's easy to continue this reverence. They have everything handed to them. Kim Il-sung's provision still happens, so clearly he is great.

Even in impoverished areas, it's often hard to give up this reverence, because they are indoctrinated from the beginning that Kim Il-sung is great, and by relation, so is Kim Jong-il. Even if it isn't true, even if 99.9% of it is a lie, they still believe it, because people are taught that with great conviction that it is the truth. Just like we are told that Sejong did all these great things on his own merit. This could be the truth, but it could also be his subordinates that did most of the work. But it is a blind reverence toward the people in power that I'm focusing on. Because Sejong is great, if another leader is proclaimed as great, then they are revered like Sejong. So through this opportunity, Kim Il-sung became great, Kim Jong-il is great, and Kim Jong-un (the projected successor to North Korea) will be great as well.

These are just things that crossed my mind at the museum. Most of it was positive. I was very impressed with the advances during Sejong's reign. It is because of him and his reign that common Koreans are able to read and write, and not just the societal elite that could go to school to learn Chinese characters. He didn't know it, but he paved the way for an entire nation to know God. If it weren't for Korean Bibles, none of this would be possible.

I wandered further, and got a unique experience. I was able to write my name with a Korean traditional calligraphy brush on rice paper. Upon finishing mine, the host told me I wrote like a Korean would. Not a bad compliment.

On this I came back home. I burned the CDs for Seol, and left to go meet Yoonmi for dinner. We decided on Italian, so back to Myeongdong for Pane Pasta. Once again, I got Fettucine Formaggio, which was again, the best Italian dish I could ever touch. Green tea bread + pasta is just an amazing comination, and has such a taste that I cannot really define it, except to say it just works. I would actually prefer it over your run of the mill pasta.

We then walked around Myeongdong, eventually heading toward Chungmuro. We passed by several pet shops, where Yoonmi looked longingly at puppies. I could honestly see a puppy in our future, easily.

With that, we headed back toward the station, and home, where I fell asleep rather quickly.