Travels - Dabi Chung: Korea, Summer 2005
My visit to Korea was a very busy one. I had to travel from city to city and to the countryside to visit my relatives. In my family, like most other Korean families, familial ties are very important. It was nice to see my relatives that I have not seen in several years. Of all my visits, I enjoyed visiting my grandmother and my grandfather the most.
Life in Korean cities is busy. People in buses, subways, cars, and in streets all seem rushed, even if they are not really late. My thoughts as to why this is are that Koreans are crowded physically and economically in cities. When someone passes by you, and accidentally bumps into you, they do not excuse themselves. Living in Tennessee for the last five years made me forget how dizzy a night in Seoul can be. If you take a look outside the window at night in Seoul, you will see many red neon cross signs. All those crosses are churches. There are many churches in Korea and many temples. The temples are hidden in mountains, and you have to walk a lot of steps to get to them, whereas, churches are in the streets, their red neon signs competing for attention with the other blazing signs in Seoul.
Most Koreans are one of the three religions: Christian, Buddhist, or nothing. Whichever they may identify themselves as, it seems that Confucianism is intertwined in Korean culture. Confucianism’s greatest impact on Korean culture is in the ancestral memorial rites. Our family puts up a table full of a wide variety of foods and pictures of the loved ones. The women prepare the food, the men bow to the pictures. In Christians' perspectives, this may seem like idol worship. Korean families do this because they first think they need to respect their loved ones, and second, because they think that those that have passed away will protect those who are left on earth. Some Christians, like me, have to find a way to resolve conflicting parts between their faith and their culture. Because bowing to ancestors may seem like idol worship, some Christians choose not to participate in the rites. In our family, we do the services although we are a Christian family. We do most of what a family without a religion would do, except we add a Christian element to it by singing Christian hymns and praying for our family’s future and the passed ones. Our relatives are not all Christian, but it is part of our history and our culture to respect the ancestors, which is why our family cannot do without these memorials and services. We do not worship them like gods; we want to pay respect to what they have done for our family in the past.
In addition, Korean respect for the elderly, from what I know, is a Confucian influence. Although Korean cities are crowded and hectic, and Korean people in those crowded places may seem cold, this is not the case. Hardly anyone hesitates to give up a seat for the elderly. In fact, there are designated seats for the elderly on the buses and subways. By this we can see how the idea of respecting the elderly is manifested in parts of Korean culture.
What I enjoyed most about my trip was visiting my grandmother. We went to visit our grandfather, in his grave. Korean graves are a simple small mound. Since I am a Christian, I prayed for my grandfather and for my grandmother by my grandfather’s grave, but since I am also Korean, I paid my respects to my grandfather by visiting his grave and clearing out weeds around his grave. This may seem a bit odd to foreigners, but I felt as if I went to visit my grandfather, not his grave, that I have not seen in years.