Countryside

My students had midterms this week. I remember seventh-grade midterms as being a kind of joke, but in Korea, the students must apply to get in to high schools; all of them will go to high school, it's just a matter of which one. And, of course, in order to get into a good university, you have to get into a good high school. For three days the students come to school, take three tests, and leave at lunchtime to study at home or at the library before they go to their private lessons. A stressful week for them, but far more relaxed for the teachers.

I told my co-teacher that I had never seen a rice field before; so, on Monday, after we had finished proctoring exams, she took me for a drive in the country. We drove on a number of back roads through little patches of rice fields and small family farms. Once outside of the cities and towns, Korea is a very green country.

She drove me to a fishing lake surrounded by large, soft, green hills. We could have been in Algonquin or somewhere in Vermont. There was a ‘café’ at the top of the pond; the sign was mostly in Korean, but it had a guitar, a cowboy, and ‘70s’ and ‘80s’ on it. Those things, at least, looked familiar. It was a beautiful fall day and a perfect day for a picnic. Since I have come to associate Korea with garbage on the streets and smoky fumes in the air, I was surprised at how pleasant the countryside seemed.

“In Canada, do you have fishing ponds like this?” I assured Yu Mi that in Canada -and in the US, many people fished on lakes and ponds. And then, I looked around. The pond was surrounded on all sides by a dock-like thing. On the dock – all around the lake -- sat chairs that resembled lazy-boys: comfortable-looking, reclinable chairs. Most of the chairs sat underneath a tent-like thing, others sat in small concrete buildings. Yu Mi pointed out that the buildings on the dock had satellite dishes. Apparently, those are the box-seats for the fishing pond.

On our drive back, we stopped for ice cream. Yu Mi explained that there are many large houses in the area and a very nice golf course. And then, “In this place, there are many dog restaurants. Do you eat dog in Canada?” “No, we keep them as pets,” I replied.

“I think dog meat is much leaner than pork.”

Not much you can say to that.


post script.
The Lonely Planet dares Korean travellers to eat the following foods:
seasoned raw minced meat
fried grasshoppers
silkworm larvae
cow kneecaps soup
live baby octopus
and, of course, dog-meat soup