Articles by mgedwards

A little bit of Paraguay in Korea

Tonight I attended the grand opening of an exhibit at the Gallery Bellarte in Seoul featuring paintings by Paraguayan artist Ernan Miranda.  My family will be heading to Paraguay next year for two years, so I was excited to join the festivities and catch a glimpse of Paraguayan art and culture right here in Korea.  The crowd included a mixture of Korean and foreign dignitaries.  I met the Paraguayan Ambassador to Korea and his deputy, both of whom are very cordial gentlemen who talked to me for a bit about Paraguay.  We briefly talked about my upcoming trip to Paraguay.  Both asked me if I played soccer.  Um, not really, I thought, but of course  I tapdanced around that question by saying that I haven’t played for a long, long (long) time.  Perhaps I’ll have to buy a pair of cleats and learn quickly how to play the game–when I get to Paraguay.  I hope that I have an opportunity to meet them again.  We could very likely cross paths again in Korea or in Paraguay.  Paraguay is not a large country.
 
The paintings were exquisite, bright, colorful, and filled with eye-catching scenes of everyday life.  Fruit, especially a solitary papaya, played a prominent theme in some of the paintings.  The images seemed to rise from the canvas in almost a third dimension, tempting the onlooker to reach out and grab them from the air.  Mr. Miranda is indeed a master painter.  I’m happy to see that Paraguayan art and culture has made its way from South America to a place not often associated with Latin American culture.  Paraguay has a small Korean community, many of whom are expatriates whom moved there to seek prosperity following the Korean War.  Korea does not have many Paraguayan expats beyond the Paraguayan Embassy.  However, exhibits such as Mr. Miranda’s will help the two countries better understand one another and forge a stronger relationship between the two cultures.
 
Blog Notes:  Today my family and I will venture to Jeju Island for three days.  I will probably be offline during this time and will write again when I return about our adventures.  Dear Reader, please have a wonderful, labor-free Labor Day weekend.

Go when they ain’t

This weekend my family will take our long-awaited trip to Jeju Island, the "Hawai’i of Korea" (except when it’s snowing).  No person in their right mind who has been in Korea for any extended period of time would miss out on visiting Jeju Island.  Jeju is Korea’s largest island located off the southern coast of Korea to the west of Japan.  Why did we wait 1.5 years to visit one of Korea’s biggest attractions?  We couldn’t find a good three-day weekend to visit it.  It takes at least three days to enjoy Jeju by air, four days by car/ferry.  It isn’t very nice in the winter, and in the summer Koreans converge on it.  There’s only a few holiday weekends that are ideal for travel around Korea, and these are American holidays–namely Memorial Day in May and Labor Day in September.  Last May, we didn’t go anywhere because we had just returned from our visit to the states.  Last September, we visited the other must-see natural wonder of Korea, Seoraksan National Park.  So, here we are visiting Jeju just a few months before our departure.  Better late than never!  We thought about going someplace like Thailand but knew we should exhaust our travel here before visiting Southeast Asia.
 
Not only is it much cheaper to travel during the off-season, but we don’t have to fight the crowds.  Koreans tend to go on vacation during specific times of the year, namely mid-August, when they converge on many of the same popular destinations around Korea and favorite international destinations such as New York City, Los Angeles, and Thailand.  Each year the newspapers publish a photo of the beach at Haeundae (near Busan) in August when thousands of vacationers descend on the beach.  It’s absolutely insane.  Who wants to spend hours snarled in traffic just be lie wall to wall with other people?  We would rather go when there are far fewer people and the rates are cheaper.  Of course, it helps immensely that Korean children are now back in school.  Koreans are far less likely to take extended trips to places such as Jeju Island during the months of September and October (or in early spring), because children usually attend private academies in the evening and school on Saturdays.  That inevitably keeps Korean familiess closer to home.  So we’ll go to Jeju Island when they ain’t.

Cinderellas in our midst

I am apparently the last one to learn that one of my Korean friends will marry an American acquaintance.  Apparently it was a whirlwind romance.  The slipper fit, and she found her Prince.  This is just a week or so after another Korean friend departed for the United States to marry an American man whom she met while he was here on a short-term visit.  None of the Koreans I’ve met here in Korea have dated or married foreigners, until now.  Two announcements in recent months is noteworthy.  Is there a third on the horizon?  I don’t know.  I’m not plugged into the rumor mill, so I don’t know.
 
I have many Korean acquaintances.  Some of them are not presently dating anyone, but they have hinted that they would be open to dating and marrying foreigners.  For some, dating a foreigner is reminiscent of the Cinderella story, especially when the one who meets and marries the foreigner finds their culture far different from their own.  It is even more intriguing when the foreigner is a traveling expatriate, moving from culture to culture, allowing the person to experience places and things they never would if they remained in their own culture. 
 
I assume that dramatic news occurs in trios.  For example, famous persons often die in threes.  Now, two of my acquaintances have recently announced their intentions to marry.  Is a third on the way?  I don’t know.  I’m very happy for the ones who found true love.  Perhaps my belief that it will happen a third time stems from the hope that it will happen to yet another Korean I know.  I hope so.