(20) TV SETUP
April 2nd, 2009
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Archive for April 2nd, 2009
Wine Ginseng Train
April 2nd, 2009
Korea Times
04-02-2009 19:44
 The Wine Train leaves for Yeongdong after holding its opening celebration at Seoul Station, March 18. Passengers of the train are offered unlimited glasses of wine. / Korea Times Photos by Shim Hyun-chul |
By Shim Hyun-chul
Staff Reporter
Spring is in full bloom in April, but instead of going flower gazing, how about a wine-sipping train ride? Enjoy the leisure of decadence on the train, and begin the new month with the clinking sound of wine glasses.
A romantic ride where you can write a letter to a special someone? Listlessly watching the passing scenery outside the window? Being squeezed into a small space, with the chattering of talkative children as background music?
A simple train ride can be boring and uneventful. But once you board the Wine Ginseng Train, you can forget bad memories. It’s no ordinary train trip. Among the trains that depart from Seoul Station and head to Yeongdong, North Chungcheong Province, there is a special train ― with a moving bar.
It features four themes under which the cabins are divided: red wine, white wine, ginseng and herbs. Photographs of wine and ginseng cover the exterior of the train while the interior is decorated like a wine bar. Instead of regular passenger seats, tables of two or four fill the space and there is also a small stage for performances.
On this train you can enjoy ― without limit ― good quality domestic wine and treats made with Geumsan’s specialty ginseng.
En route to eastern Yeongdong, you can take part in various programs and learn about wine and ginseng. This would be a trip that wine lovers, rather than connoisseurs, would appreciate. Because drinks are served without limit, some guests can be seen leaving the ride a little tipsy.
The festivity continues at Yeongdong-gun, where a “samulnori” (Korean traditional percussion band) performance awaits. The next stop is Wine Korea, the country’s unique wine producer, where you can see tens of thousands of bottles of fine wine being processed. There is also a museum, an exhibition of the wine-making process, a wine footbath and wine-making booths.
Following the exploratory, you can buy ginseng and other roots and herbs at Geumsan, which produces 80 percent of domestic ginseng.
The Wine Ginseng Train leaves four times a week on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. Tickets are available at any Korail station. For more information about the package, call (043) 744-3211~3. You can also visit www.winekr.co.kr or www.korail.com.
Spontaneous Humanity Is Korea’s National Resources
April 2nd, 2009
Korea Times
04-02-2009 18:50
This is the fourth in a series of articles featuring the 10 Most Wonderful Things about Korea.
By Jon Huer
Korea Times Columnist
Spontaneity is one of Korea’s most endearing folk traits. It knows neither formality nor propriety. Koreans settle anywhere, anytime to get a roadside party started.
They throw down a mat and spread their stuff on it. Eating, drinking and dancing follow. There are no strangers once this festivity is under way. People are pulled down to share soju from the same glass and food from the same plate.
When Koreans, especially the older ones, see children, they spontaneously attack them with playfulness and affection, completely ignoring their parents. If the children happen to be foreign, their attack is merciless.
They tear the kids away from their parents and begin a collective love-fest with the babies.
They pass the babies from one to
another, until everybody has squeezed, hugged and kissed them. Never mind the hygienic concern. They offer to the babies, as if they are their own grandbabies, even their own half-eaten food.
There is no ulterior motive in their spontaneous responses. They are just being human, unburdened by formality with or fear of strangers.
Their spontaneous display of humanity is one of Korea’s greatest national resources, but it is also one of the least recognized and appreciated among Korea’s greatest wonders.
The secret here is “spontaneous,” not pre-arranged, not pre-organized, not pre-planned. For Korea is one of the worst countries at carrying out anything with pre-arrangement, pre-organization or pre-planning.
But when Koreans are inspired by the movement of their spontaneous spirit and energy, there is nothing more memorable, humane or true.
When foreigners recognize and witness one of those spontaneous moments in Korea and with Koreans, the experience is easily one of the most cherished moments in their lifetime.
One can tell much about a people or a society by the way they respond to strangers and treat babies. As long as Koreans are in their “private-true” element, not in “public” or formal, no people or society on Earth is more open to strangers and babies with
spontaneous warmth and unconscious abandon than Koreans. Not in Asia, not anywhere in the world.
Unforgettable Lyrical Songs
One of Korea’s greatest treasures is the group of songs called “Lyrical Songs of Korea,” mostly composed during Japanese colonial rule. They include the ever-popular “Bongseonhwa,” “Gahgo-pa,” “Bahwi-gohgay,” “Yet-dong-san,” just to name a few of the most famous.
Admittedly, these songs are utterly sentimental and inconsolable, presumably reflecting the sorrowfulness of Korea under foreign domination. But what sentimentality and what longing! They could break the hearts of even the most stubborn of savages.
The truth of their lyricism and the beauty of their melodies can find their match perhaps only in Hebrew literature. American Black soul music, as intensely soulful as it is, is a distant third.
What makes these songs so heartfelt and touching without being trite, even after countless repetitions? I believe it is because of the utter purity of the composer’s heart at the time the words and tunes were written.
Only the truest of human hearts could produce sounds and notes so pure and so touching over such a long period of time.
Musical notes reflect the composer’s state of mind as words do that of the writer. This is one aspect that separates “classics” from contemporary “Pop Music.” Pure hearts create pure notes and words.
It is for this reason that modern writers and composers cannot write great stuff. They are just too corrupted and distracted. Money and fame surely corrupt and distract the heart.
The lyrical Korean songs, representing Korea’s once-in-a-lifetime purity of heart under Japanese colonial rule, are some of Korea’s greatest achievements.
They should be heard at airports, shops, parks and wherever foreigners go as an introduction to Korea’s very best hearts and minds. In fact, there should be an introductory program explaining and playing these songs on every flight headed toward Korea.
Indeed, as we look back at the long and tumultuous history of Korea, of its many sorrows and sufferings, it is obvious that there was never a period where Koreans were truer or more faithful to themselves as the period under Japanese rule. Most Koreans were united as never before, their hearts beating as one, their voices sounding the notes and words toward an indifferent Heaven in great collective distress, and these lyrical songs were born.
As they say that slavery created American Blacks’ soul music, and the Holocaust the State of Israel, Japanese rule wrote these lyrical songs of Korea. It is a burst of pure love for their country and freedom, expressed in the most captivating words and melodies, that Koreans will never be able to capture again.
With so much falsehood and fakery making up Korea’s so-called “culture” today, the faint resonance of these lyrical songs, so seldom heard or sung, is all the more unforgettable in their dying echo and remembrance.