Gwangali Shijo and a Haiku.

A haiku I wrote during last years rainy season. Sadly no typhoons on our way lately. I find them so exciting.

Typhoon at sea
Night clouds drift sprinkle rain
On the writing table moon.
 MWT.
Here are two pictures of Gwangali Bridge otherwise now known as 'Diamond Bridge' with Gwangali beach infront. It is my favorite beach in Busan.









The hill on the right is Igidae Hill half way up on it is a small temple. Yiran and I have met the monk there several times Dae Bang is his name.
On the extreme right you can see the Samick Beach Apartments and a black speck that is a statue of a red flower pot. Every night over the last few weeks its been either rainy or foggy in Gwangan so I still don't have a picture of the flower pot lit up nor the lights from the temple on the hill. If you're ever there in Gwangali at night, do look out to Igidae hill for the temple lights. They're quite beautiful.

I thought it appropriate to write a shijo about our neighborhood beach Gwangali, instead of the Japanese form haiku. Here are two versions of it : (I wish shijo were eight lines instead of six)

Diamond bridge shines in blue,
coffee shops bars a bustle

Igidae hill dark pyramid, lone light of a temple there
across at Cafe Pascucci, I slowly write this shijo,

Monk, poet here are both
United Nations observers.

Heres another version, with a different first couplet. Geumyeonsan is the mountain that faces the sea and Igidae hill is on a peninsula that stretches out into the sea making the beach area a bit of a bay. I wish I could fit Igidae in to the shijo form along with Geumeyonsan but alas, both don't seem to fit into the frame.

Sunset, clouds crest Geumyeonsan
Red flowerpot lit to gold

Igidae hill dark pyramid, lone light of a temple there
across at Cafe Pascucci, I slowly write this shijo,

Monk, poet here are both
United Nations observers.

MWT.

Rainy season preparations: Calligraphy and Tea.

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Rainy season is coming along with the exciting typhoons. According to the KMA weather website the first typhoon of the season will miss us, hitting Osaka instead.

Lately I've been stocking up on tea to prepare for the weekends when its too rainy to go outside. I also set up my calligraphy set on the veranda. Here's a shijo I wrote a few weeks ago:

 

 Trees point angrily at sky,

black branches sprout like old vines.

Cherry blossoms floated like cloud!

spring here is a cold grey thief.

Grind the mok, paint a scroll,

only tea can save us from him.

--MWT.

Mok is charcoal that comes in stick form, sold at any art or stationery store here, used for brush form calligraphy.

Years ago I bought a cheap calligraphy set at a small 문벙구/stationery store. It came with everything but the paper. (화선지 is korean for calligraphy paper sold anywhere you can get a good stick of mok). The set (pictured to the right here) cost only 12,000 won ! It might be hard to find, although it might not. You'll have to check your local MoombangGu.

 I recommend this set to anyone starting in on Asian calligraphy; Japanese Korean Chinese: the line strokes are all the same just varying characters. Over the years I'd been upgrading the parts of it: I got a more expensive pointier brush, a stone 벼루 instead of the plastic one in the set, etc.

Another good purchase was a good beginners book on calligraphy. I recommend 꽃들 한글서예/flowers Korean calligraphy. I got mine at the calligraphy & paper store in Nampodong. Its great as it shows you how to make each individual brush stroke. I still have much to learn with calligraphy, having taken only 3 months at a calligraphy hagwon and 1 semester at a college here so I don't plan on teaching it for another year.
For those interested in learning and finding their Korean skills lacking I recommend getting one of your friends to set you up for 1-2 months at one of the calligraphy hagwons. The teachers mainly instruct you by drawing a few lines for you and then you try it. Its instruction by copying little langage ability is needed as you're learning a skill. The only vocabulary you'll need is up, down, left and right (things you can get with a decent level 1 Korean). The only other vocabulary you'll need is : 

화선지: white paper
붓: brush
먹: your charcoal ink stick. You grind this down in your 벼루.
벼루: graduated stone for grinding charcoal into the water.

Really, that's it. Then its class time: where you'll follow the teacher, doing as they do. At the hagwon I spent 4 classes doing horizontal lines. Then another month doing verticle lines. This summer its circles for me and presto! I'll be able to do hangul! All at the Sawyeah hagwon. (I got alot of other instruction from the college but more on flowers and teapots later)...Don't let the langage barrier stop you! Make the effort ! Fear not : you can only win. --MWT.



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Samurai Suicide

The snow here in Busan is quite an event as with the spring cherry blossoms. Koreans tend to be more exuberant about such things more so than westerners.

Here's two shijo I wrote while on Pu'er tea earlier this evening. They can be read separately or as a shijo sequence. I'll blog more about sequences later...

Samurai Suicide,The Snow Here

Korean students learn shijo,
memorize how for the exam.
Trudge home late sometimes 9 o'clock,
study more then to bed
Mercedez Benz at 50 years,
poetry a luxury.

Samurai suicide,
Korean student jumps off roof.
Honor saving from shame,
both blunt ends with other options
Creative west has more colors,
the snow here, is whiter. -- MWT.

These poems were inspired by three things: An article about tea rescuing over 160 australians from suicide. Located at The Ancient Art of Tea blog. Another inspiration came from Busan English radio where an ESL teacher was talking about one of his students committing suicide. The third souce of inspiration came from all the Pu'er tea I had been drinking since this afternoon. Sipping tea invites the muses indeed. --MWT.

Tourists

Here's an English shijo poem I wrote over the weekend:

Teahouse in Nampodong, B-boy group outside raging tunes

Young to old, we take our photos, turn to traditional ways

Work, shopping, tired to the teahouse, we are all tourists here.

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I wrote it last Saturday. I went to a Nampo teahouse to mark my midterm exams and outside, infront of the Krispy Kreme Doughnut shop, they had a b-boy group (Korean for a group of boy dancers) and several famous singers. I think it was a promotion for the BeanPole Clothing brand as that store was right across from the doughnut shop.

 Heres another I wrote a few hours earlier:

What we write or tell the young ones can only last for so long

Through our lives we work and play, slaves to a moments sensation

Take lovely pictures while ye may; we are all tourists here.

The Korean for the English shijo is as follows:

잚을 이들에게 말하거나 쓴것을 그 한게가 있다
우리는 인생을 통해 일하고 즐깁니다 한 순가의 욕망의 노예가
아름다운 사진을 가능한 찍어보세요 우리는 모두 관광객 입니다.

Translation above by Sung-Yirahn 성이란. Typing by myself so any typos are mine --MWT.
.............
먹을수있는한 김밥을 드새요, 우리는 모두 관광객 입니다.
(Eat kimbap while ye may, we are all tourists here).

A decent substitute for the last line in the English could be:
Eat delicious hamburgers while ye may; we are all tourists here.
(먹을수있는한 맛있는 함버거드새요, 우리는 모두 관광객 입니다).
That last line with hamburgers makes me laugh, especially as I love Thomas Grill in Daeyeon/Kyungsung.

Living in Busan for 8 years I have had alot of time to reflect on what it means to be a long time resident here, versus my being a foreigner, always learning but never to become a true native Korean (caucasian face and race aside). I began to reflect on what it means then, to be a tourist. I realized that I am forever to be a kind of tourist here. But in essence, aren't we all tourists...

I had that final line buzzing in my head for the past 3 months now: Take your pictures while ye may, we are all tourists here. A modern day Carpe Diem kind of thing. In the 2nd poem I changed it to "lovely" to match a common traditional shijo form of 15,15,14 syllables.
Welcome, tourists all, to my blog. MWT.