From: Peter Wynne-Willson <pwynne@nuri.net>

Subject: The week in Seoul

Date: Monday 8 November 1999 01:09

This week I got onto a train, elbowed my way rapidly across the compartment, and squeezed myself between two men who were spreading themselves nonchalently as if to make out there wasn't room for someone in between. Ha. I wasn't having that. I sat, switched on my walkman and closed my eyes. I have become a commuter.

Up to now, I think I had held myself slightly above the crowd, attempting an attitude of easy amusement, and trying to be sustained by interest in the details of the people and happenings, but I have been swallowed up. I expect it's the same as in London in most ways, although there is a particular cultural thing about ignoring strangers. Until you have been introduced to someone, and exchanged business cards, a Korean person has know way of knowing how to relate to you, since relative status is the deciding factor, even in the form of the language you will use, which has three levels of politeness. In other words, you can't say 'hello' to someone. It might be completely inappropriate, because they might be on a 'good morning' level. So you ignore their existence, even as a physical presence, to be moved round, and instead you push straight through them. It is strange, because obviously to me, knocking someone out of your way seems a bit ruder than getting your verb-ending wrong, but this is an area of genuine cultural difference, it really isn't intended as rude. Once you have been introduced, practically everybody I've met has been incredibly friendly. I suppose we have the same class stuff, it's just that we are happy to judge on appearances, which doesn't sound any better when you think about it.

This system though makes for a very strange division in my week, because the status of 'professor' makes a radical difference to the way people are with me. On my days off I feel quite often a little invisible. Personally I would like to dispense with the business card bit, and carry a big sign around my neck saying 'Visiting Professor' Then they'd clear the way on the tube!

Anyway, there I was, squeezed so close to everyone else that you can feel which bits of their bodies are warmest, and ignoring away...

I've had a good week. The work is all going very well, and I'm getting more used to working through Yumi. This week I did a demonstration lesson at the Seoul Foreign School, to a group of assorted 13 year-old english speakers. This was alarming at first, because my students and Professor Choi [Young-ai] were watching, and without knowing the group at all I had effectively set it up as a kind of see-how-it's-done session.

The school is very American. There was a big wide corridor full of lockers, just like in all the films, and a loudspeaker in the classroom which the 'Principal' came through on at the start of the lesson [excuse me, class] to say a few improving words for the day. I wasn't sure whether to clasp my hand to my heart or something. In fact the actual session was really pretty much the same as it would have been in Dudley, and so I was pleased that I had set it up. Once again the scale of appreciation is what is so appealing about being here. It went OK, but afterwards each student found their individual moment to tell me what a glorious privilege it had been for them...I'm beginning to regret the fact that Ali is coming out, because she is just going to go round saying 'Please, do you know what you're saying?' to them all. She might blow the whole thing!

On my last invisible day this week I went up Namsan Tower, which is a big modern tower on the top of the biggest hill in Seoul, Namsan ['san' means mountain]. It was something I thought I ought to do, rather than looked forward to, because I knew I would get a bit scared, but I do have this Kate Adie complex, along with the various other delusions of my life here, so, what would she do?

There is a cable car which goes to the top of the mountain, so my first decision was an easy one. Walk. So much for Kate, who would at very least have stood on the roof of the cable car, if not hung from the bottom. The path up was cut into steps the whole way, very steep indeed, and actually I was completely terrified. There was more or less no-one walking up, though a couple of elderly women skipped past me kneeling on the floor at one point. The views from the top of the hill were extraordinary, though, with a very strange effect again of being behind a row of trees, but with skyscrapers just beyond, almost in touching distance.

After the hairy climb, the lift to the top of the tower was fine, and I found looking out from the enclosed observation floor surprisingly unalarming. It did give a pretty good idea of why the city is so bewildering at ground level. I had a meal in the revolving restaurant at the top.

On the walk down, there was a point for the very first time since I came, that I could see or hear no-one else, I could believe I was the sole soul in Seoul. Obviously I've been waiting for that moment, but it's taken a while coming!

Other moments/highlights from the week:

I got taken again to the exhibition, which was open this time, and was fun. Lots of tiny insect-size sculptures, in a kind of basement. I was glad it was something I could understand, because there are these moments sometimes where I am supposed to say intelligent things about art, which I find a little disturbing. They all refer so readily to things. 'It's very much like that bit in Gullivers travels' , JiYong said yesterday - I would generally be reasonably unembarrassed about saying I haven't read things, but it seems so pathetic when they all have, and in a foreign language.....

I also went to a performance at Sodaemun Prison, where the much-hated Japanese held, tortured and executed political prisoners during their occupation of Korea. Actually, the Korean post-war dictators used it for the same purpose, although that part of the history is a little less acknowledged.. It was a fantastic, wonderfully atmospheric thing, with lots of people, weird dancing and happenings, smoke, fire, lights, music....there are some kinds of traditional music here that I think are sensational - a very mournful 3 string bowed thing [haegum] which has about the pitch of a viola, and a kind of wailing reeded flute [saegum]. I went on my own but was spotted by a student, and whisked into VIP land with lots of people introduced variously as famous actors, poets and survivors from the prison - a lot of bowing in all directions. Anyway, I got asked to write a review of the piece for the Korea Herald, which is the national english-language paper here. I explained I hadn't understood it, because it was all in Korean, but this excuse fell through. They are setting me up with an interpreter who will explain what it all meant. Right.

We had a session at Ewha Women's University, which is the famous traditional university here. Because the Foreign school was the other side of Seoul, we decided to have our afternoon class somewhere else, and this was nearby. it is where Yumi lectures when she isn't busy sweeping leaves from my path! It was very english looking, with stone buildings and lots of trees, ivy covered professors..., and with statues of the missionary women who founded it. It all made me think about Emily Davies, and TC. I suppose it is in fact based on American universities, but they in turn perhaps owe a bit. The nature of the american presence here is a really fascinating mixture. I think I'll save my thesis on that to the next message. Anyway Ewha is a much more formal place than KNUA, which makes me feel glad that I am not teaching there instead.

The pavements are interesting. I see a lot of them, and they are nearly all either dug up, or being dug, or with small paving stones placed back willy-nilly on previous digging. The sort of landscape that Liverpool solicitors dream of. They put blankets on partly dug sections, which looks rather sweet I think. The whole of Seoul is a building site. In some ways the overall feeling I have about it, is it will be great when it's finished. You suspect though that nothing will ever be enough. A lot of what's happening now is to prepare for the World Cup here in 2002. I am subtly making suggestions that probably I'll need to re-visit to see how the course is coming along about then....I wonder if I can get tickets, as a Korean journalist.......practically.

I'll write again next week. Thank you for all your messages.

With lots of love

Peter Wynne-Willson [Visiting Professor and Performance art Critic of the Korea Herald]

Do you think it's going to my head?

 

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