Birthday outing: shaman village and noraebang

*Photos on the next post below

So how does one celebrate a birthday when one has only been in South Korea a month and the temperature is still in minus figures? Well, Mackie, Mark, Jo, Josh and I chose to explore a shaman village perched above Seoul, before galbi dinner with a gang of Koreans and finishing the evening wailing Radiohead and The Verve songs in a 'noraebang' (Karaoke room).

First stop was a traditional shamanistic village hiding on a 'holy' mountainside from the sprawling Seoul below: a collection of brightly decorated temples and traditional wooden houses covered with colours and symbols (phot 1).

Shamanism is a pagan lifestyle where people worship nature and spirits, rather than humanised deities, although Korean shamanism seems to have incorporated many aspects of Buddhism. Shamanism is now quite scarce in Korea although evidence is still seen as wicka figurines in parks and totem-pole like faces cut into wooden poles and rocks that guard the entrances to large houses and villages. All over the hillside around this village people were seeking solitude to make offerings of rice onto the forest floor and sweet foods on the paths. Old women lit candles at shrines hewn into the rocks and prayed for goodness for their sons or daughters. Old men pottered around little alters near ancient rock-carvings of the Buddha, or collected water dripping from thick curtains of icicles that will be gushing waterfalls in the spring.

We found a house-sized granite boulder, rounded by onion-skin weathering, to saddle upon to eat a raisin and walnut birthday cake. From our serene perch, high-rise Seoul, directly below, sprawled as far as the horizon (photo 2). Its spatial proximity yet immense spiritual distance reminded me of peering down upon bustling Rio from the towering Corcovado (giant Christ statue).

This was my second time to the village in the month. The first time, Vicki and I saw a whole pig defrosting in a sunbeam and charcoal being made, possibly for a sacrifice later on. From inside the temple came the sound of chanting and the beating of drums and bells. The villagers would have been starting a ritual where the wise woman of the village is sent into a trance and then communicates with the spirit world – to seek village prosperity or security, or ask for a bad spirit to leave them in peace. 100m further on was the hum of the city centre traffic and the pings of sweetly-hit golf balls at the nearby driving range. I wonder if the rest of Korea has such diversity in such close proximity?

Dinner was in a galbi restaurant (pork steaks) barbecued over a charcoal pit sunk into the middle of the table, with the Western and Korean teachers of Hanyang Oregon Language Institute, Vicki's school. We sat on the floor around a table twelve inches off the ground.

Table etiquette demands that the beer or ‘soju’ (the local fire water) is first poured into the glass of the eldest/most senior by someone else. The liquid is poured one handed, with the other hand touching the pouring arm between elbow and wrist. This tradition originated from a time requiring the pourer to demonstrate he held no weapons when leaning forward to the senior. No one lifts their glass to drink before the most senior has done so. The elder’s/senior’s glass cannot lie empty and when it is the rest of the group should immediately drain theirs in one gulp with a “ganbae” (cheers/bottoms’up/down in one), and all glasses are refilled.
After a quick few minutes the uncooked galbi (a marinated pile of pork steaks or racks or ribs) arrived, with a tableful of side dishes that enhance the meal-sharing idea. They typically include raw octopus or cuttlefish, raw crab, omelette scones containing finely-chopped vegetables, pickled spinach, chopped salad, quartered carrots and cucumbers, a bowl of ‘jjigae’ (broth), ‘gimchi’ (more on this later) and a large plate of lettuce and sesame leaves (photo 3). The sesame leaves are dark green, slightly furry and deliciously tangy. The barbecuing galbi meat is cut into small pieces at the table with large scissors and placed, with bits from the side dishes, into the middle of a large salad leaf. The corners are folded to make a neat green package (like a tortilla wrap) to be popped into the mouth in one. Rice comes in a little silver dish that originated from a time when the Joseon kings wanted to check their dinner for poisons, that would tarnish the silver.

There is so much chilli in Korean food! After chilli-covered salad, chilli-covered crab, chilli paste dip for the raw carrots, chilli sauce on the spring onion pile (like they don't have enough bite anyway), I find the wasabi-covered salad a refreshing respite from the pain. No wonder the Koreans get fiesty when discussing the Japanese! My mouth burns and eyes and nose stream throughout the meal, yet blowing one’s nose at the table is apparently the height of rudeness. Doesn’t make sense!

Korea’s answer to stumbling home from a pub holding a chip butty and singing ‘The Masterplan’ or ‘Karma Police’ with your other arm draped over a mate’s shoulder, is the ‘noraebang’ (karaoke room). The noraebang has several sound-proof booths for hire by the hour. Our room of rainbow plastic contained a giant screen and red velvety sofas, incredibly tacky wall murals of flowers, microphones, and a book full of Korean and Western songs (photo 4). I thought Glynnis’ plastic Dome of the Rock alarm clock that yells out the call to prayer at wake-up time was kitsch, but the noraebang is in a different league. Beers can be bought, but I chose to sneak some strong ones in as I was going to need all the Dutch courage I could consume.

Stephanie and Victoria sang like angels to The Bangles and Paul Simon hits with the words on-screen in front of cheesy waterfall vistas and home-videos of cockle-pickers in an estuary. At the end of each track a little fanfare made on a Fisher Price ‘Baby’s first keyboard’ announced a score of 95-99% for the singer. I was dreading my turn as I wasn’t any where near drunk enough. Considering the extreme cheesiness of Korean pop I was surprised and uplifted to see that the most popular bands, in terms of number of songs in the noraebang songbook, were Radiohead and Nirvana. There were some Oasis and The Verve classics too, and even one or two of Embrace’s. After cat-wailing renditions of ‘No Suprises’ and ‘Karma Police’ (yet scores of 93%, I’ll have you know) the others confiscated the microphone from me, to everyone’s relief. Koreans are really keen on their singing, and those I’ve spoken to go to noraebangs regularly to practise. The most amazing thing to me is that they do it sobre!
Korea certainly has dining out down to a tee and interesting venues to finish an evening, but Oh! for a British pub.