[Terry's Tale] Can We Know Which Leaf of the Tree Will Be Next To Go?

The winds that blow –

Ask them, which leaf of the tree

Will be next to go!

- Soseki (as translated by Harold Henderson)

Han Hye-rhim’s class was invited to a resort over this weekend and I was unexpectedly invited along. I chose both the blog title and the above epigraph because in thinking about this unexpected situation, I thought also about how, in life, fate often chooses our paths in daily life more than we realize.

The resort buildings, though smaller than the poorly constructed ‘MacMansions’ that abound in the US, were well built and sited next to the top of a mountain. Being a rural area, sandwiched between these buildings were some of the older houses people used to commonly use. I should note here that in looking at a topographical map of South Korea that much of it is more or less mountainous having elevations of 250 meters and up, especially the eastern part.

Anyway, the experience was no different than situations I had in the US. The kids gather and play together in their noisy, energetic ways, mothers congregate to talk amongst themselves, and the men gather to drink alcohol and talk amongst themselves. This form of information exchange is human and thus common for all but the very poorest around the world. The alcohols of choice here are soju (a liquor made from rice) and makju (beer).

At some point, food is prepared over grills and all sit around tables to eat and enjoy the conversations for a while.

In time, the children return to their play – in this case they were using high volume water guns on each other and on adults who wandered in their direction, and swimming in a large, blow-up pool as well as in another large blow-up pool that had an attached slide that had been brought in by a company that rents out such things. Then the group of men then began to dissipate as they went in search of something else to occupy them. It was a good day and a good time was had by all, and it could have occurred just as readily in the US as in Korea.

Before we left, one of Hye-rhim’s classmates, a small boy, came up to me and asked me – in Korean – what I was doing here in Korea. I could not possibly explain this to one so young so I responded with moli gesaiyo (I can only guess at the spelling) – ‘I don’t know’ - though in later thought I realized it would have been more appropriate to say mut heo – ‘I cannot say’.

He looked at me for a moment and then went to his parents and said “he is not American, he spoke Korean!”

The delivery truck for the blow-up party supplies

The resort building used by our party

Preparing the blow up pool and the blow-up slide and pool

Children preparing their water guns

The festivities begin

Ovens such as these used to be attached to the houses and used not

only for cooking food for a household, but also for winter time heating as well

The entranceway statue

In the lower left corner is the building used by our party, in the upper middle is the other building of same construction. Sandwiched between are some older houses.