Chuseok Long Weekend

I love looking around my table and realizing that no two people are from the same country.  Different languages, traditions, cultures, and different melodies in our laughs.  Yet, we all share something much deeper in common, and we’ve all ended up in the same place somehow. 

At the top of Namsan, people chain their love to its gates: promises, hopes, and dreams.

"But now I been thinkin' what he said, an' I can remember - all of it. Says one time he went out in the wilderness to find his own soul, an' he foun' he didn' have no soul that was his'n. Says he foun' he jus' got a little piece of a great big soul. Says a wilderness ain't no good, 'cause his little piece of a soul wasn't no good 'less it was with the rest, an' was whole." (John Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath)  Although he was writing within a different context, Steinbeck sort of perfectly captures how I feel: there’s some kind of wholeness about living in harmony with the global community.  And that comes through our personal connections with one another.

Today (Monday), is the last of three days of the autumn harvest festival, Chuseok (추석).  It is celebrated annually on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar, around the Autumn Equinox.  It’s sort of like a Korean Thanksgiving.  Everyone travels to their hometown (usually their ancestral hometown) to pray to their ancestors, spend time with family, and, of course, feast.  They also exchange gifts – usually pretty practical ones like food or toiletries, it seems. 

Traditional Korean dresses. 

In the absence of my biological family, I spent a lot of time with my friends here.  Some of the highlights included eating delicious food, hiking with friends up a mountain in the middle of Seoul called Namsan, and singing in a karaoke bar.  Korean karaoke bars, or Noraebang (노래방), are rooms that you rent out by the hour and are equipped with usually two microphones, tambourines, and a karaoke machine.  Since no one has much vocal talent, it’s a non-humiliating way to belt out your favorite tunes with your favorite people. 

At the top of Namsan with friends.

At the Noraebang with friends.

In terms of classes, things are starting to ramp up with presentations, papers, and exams.  I’m also facing the daunting task of writing two theses this year more head on.  I’ll be writing about vocational training and technical education programs for women in post-conflict societies and how that shapes post-conflict peacebuilding efforts (and maybe sustainable development?); in one, I’ll focus on the population of war widows, and the other on female ex-combatants.  I’m in the process of trying to identify organizations in Sri Lanka and/or Nepal that I might be able to join for about two months this winter to collect primary field data.  If any of my dear readers have any leads in these areas, please send them my way!

Peace,
Laura