I hope everyone has had a wonderful week thus far. Mine has been going well, I caught a slight cold (NO, I DON'T HAVE THE SWINE FLU HAHA) so been a little under the weather, but nothing serious. I went to the pharmacy the other night and after a few days of medicine, I feel much better. Today is my last round of pills, and I feel about 80% today, so hopefully by the weekend I'll be back to 100%. The weather (as I've said before) during fall in Korea is unbeatable. Usually about 80 degrees and sunny with no humidity. If that's not amazing, I don't know what is. I wish it was like this year round! HA! But, if it was, then maybe everyone in the world would want to move here.
So this past weekend I went with my friend Kevin (his English name) to his hometown of Eumseong in the province next to ours Chungcheongbukdo which is basically South Chungcheong province (much like North and South Carolina). Here is a map click the plus symbol 5 times and you can see Eumseong, remember I live in Cheonan.
Chuseok is next weekend (for those who don't remember, Chuseok is a harvest festival celebrated in Korea on the 15th day of August on the lunar calendar) and one of the traditions of Chuseok is to return to one's hometown and pay respect to their ancestors by going to their grave and bowing. Kevin told me that most people will bow to the two generations above them, living or deceased. So, for instance Kevin's father is still alive, so he will bow to him two times, and then his grandfather is deceased, so they will go to his grave and bow two times to him. So, that being said...it is very important for the graves to be cleaned well around this time of year. So, this past weekend when we went to Eumseong (which, by the way is a very small town, and the hometown of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon) and helped his family to clean up the graves. We had a pretty good work party, there were maybe about 10 of us and we had about 20 graves to clean. The area around Eumseong is really beautiful and it was a nice change of pace to be out in the country as opposed to city life. I was upset I didn't think to take my camera, so unfortunatly I don't have any pictures. To clean the graves, there were basically two people running weed eaters with blades on them and taking out all the weeds/bushes/etc that have grown since last year, and then the rest of us raked all of it up and cleared it away. It was actually a very unique experience, and I enjoyed working along side my friend and his family. I told him several times that things like that I truly enjoy, feeling a little more like a citizen than a tourist. We worked for about 5 hours cleaning all the graves, and then after that his mom and aunts made us a nice lunch.
Eumseong is also very well know for peaches. Kevin's dad actually taught English for 30 years and is now "retired" but still operates his peach farm that has around 60-80 peach trees. This is their busy season, and so after we took a short break, we helped his dad pick some peaches and get them boxed up for the market. For those of you who remember one of the dumbest, catchiest, songs I can remember, the music group The Presidents of the United States of America had a song "Peaches" and it made me think of this song that I'd forgotten years ago. So, anyway...if you like dumb music, or silly songs, maybe you'll like to revisit your past and listen to the song.
HAHA...I've had that song stuck in my head for the past 4 days, so be careful!
2 comments:
Hey Ben! It sounds like a fun weekend with your friend and his family. Thanks for the map link and song link. Now you'll have all of your followers singing the peaches song ;)
Yeah for updating your blog. I need to do the same. Tom and I were just talking about you the other day. He mentioned he got a couple emails from and hasn't had a chance to write. Don't feel bad, he is not mad at you or anything. He started working again and he is busier then ever. And the few times he is home, well, between getting the lawn mowed/arriated, and BYU football, he doesn't do much else. So just know we still love ya and are thinking about you, even when we aren't taking the time to sit and write.
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