Meeting Mr Kim

by Jennifer Barclay

  He offered me the back seat of his car, which I found a little awkward, but who knew what rules different monks had to adhere to when it came to associating with unkempt foreign women? He was in his fifties with a rather serious demeanour. We pulled into a petrol station and sat in silence as the attendant filled the tank. Then the monk leaned back and handed me something. What was it? I read the packet: ‘Morning Tissues.’ Perhaps it was a freebie gift from the station attendant. He smiled, and I laughed. It broke the ice.

  He said he would drive me to Seonunsan in the morning, so he obviously didn’t live there after all. I asked the name of his temple, and he told me Yeonhwasa. We were heading into countryside. In the dark, I made out fields either side of the road. After about twenty minutes, we left the main road and arrived at a farm. He disappeared for a moment, then came out to ask if I would like to have coffee with his ‘temple family’. I hesitated, stupidly saying I didn’t want coffee, not knowing what would be polite, but he encouraged me to come in and we walked across a yard past tractors, dogs and a chicken coop.

  In a room sparsely decorated with a huge TV, a few family photos high up above a doorway, several clocks and a roll of toilet paper hanging on the wall, presumably for cleaning hands, I met the temple family. We all sat cross-legged on the floor. They were small people, with the dark tanned complexion that comes from working outdoors, and black wavy hair cut short. I’d seen people who looked like this in the fields, squatting to pick crops as I whizzed by in a bus. Suddenly I realised how small the monk was, too, sitting on the floor and urging me to eat slices of the yellow melon that had been cut for us.

  One woman wore gold jewellery and lots of gold in her teeth. She looked embarrassed. Her husband, dirty from working in the fields, refused to come into the room, and sat in the covered porch instead. They asked if I was travelling alone, honja, and I said yes, to ahs of astonishment. I tried to explain that I had a boyfriend back in the city. ‘Drummer,’ I said, miming. ‘Hyattu Hotelo.’ Ahh! Smiles, confused looks.

  The other woman stared at me with a big, friendly smile. She asked how old I was. Then she touched my wooden bead bracelet and asked, with a palms-together bow, if I was Buddhist. I shook my head but tried to explain that I was learning about Buddhism, and said ‘Sudoksa’, indicating the bracelet.

  Back in the car, the monk and I drove uphill along a rough track towards a neon reverse swastika, the symbol for a Buddhist temple, and a string of colourful lanterns. A rabbit froze in the headlights as we parked, and in the dark I glimpsed traditional wooden buildings. The house area was a functional wood and concrete place, where mosquitoes played crazily in the light. A woman showed me to a tiny cell-like room, raised off the ground on a platform. She wiped dead insects off the floor, turned on an electric fan and left a can of insect spray. She also brought bedding – a reed mat, a quilt for a mattress, a pillow and a cotton blanket – and pointed out the latrines beyond the end of the building.

  I thanked her, left my shoes outside and crouched to get through the doorway into the stiflingly hot space, closing the door at once against mosquitoes. This was a storeroom: I was surrounded by toilet rolls, extra blankets, a sewing machine and radio, odd bits of furniture. Not quite like the sumptuous accommodation of the last monastery I’d stayed at. The floor was a bug graveyard. It was still early, as the noisily ticking clock kept telling me, but I lay my sleeping bag over the thin quilt for extra padding and managed to fall asleep. Around midnight I woke, needing desperately to pee. There was no light, so I fumbled in my backpack for my torch, but the more vain the search seemed, the more urgent my need became, so I grabbed my Morning Tissues and stumbled outside.

  Fearing the bark of a guard dog, I tiptoed to the end of the house in the dark, brushing away cobwebs and mosquitoes and feeling for a light switch. The latrines were vile-smelling in the humid heat, though at least the holes in the concrete floor were covered when not in use. I was loath to uncover one, and there was no sign of a light switch. Eventually I chose the grass instead, swatting away insects and praying that my monk – or any monk – wouldn’t come by at that moment.

  Back in my room, sleep eluded me. My body was now accustomed to staying up until all hours in the city, and I hadn’t done much to tire myself out – just eat and sit on a bus. The noisy fan only made the hot, humid air turbulent, so I turned it off, and disabled the clock by removing the battery. Peaceful, Buddhist thoughts were hard to summon. Cattle lowed in a nearby field. Outside my door, I thought I heard the occasional tock of a wooden drum. I heard one o’clock strike, then two, and three.

  Clearly something was drawing me to these Buddhist temples, I reflected. I didn’t for a minute intend to take up religion, but was brushing up close to an inspiring way of life, and wanted to know more.

  I must have fallen asleep eventually, because I woke up to a beautiful male voice chanting outside. I lay spellbound for a while. When I looked at the time, it was 4.50 a.m. Just then, someone struck the enormous iron bell in the wooden pavilion a few metres away. Its deep sound grew loud and intense, and I felt it vibrate through me before its perfect note receded; then it struck again. I pulled on my clothes and quietly opened my door to half-daylight, and knelt on the wooden balcony. One of the women from last night was kneeling and swinging a huge wooden clanger against the bell. Finally she got up and went back towards the house, where she took wood from the massive stack of logs, and lit a fire under an iron stove.

  I walked through mist and the smell of woodsmoke; it was still not fully light, and the singing was lovely. Below were fields. Above, pine forest. A little way up the hill, in the temple, the monk was alone, singing. A golden statue of Buddha looked out across the valley, lit candles glinting off the gilt, and the ceiling was covered in lotus-lanterns from which hung paper prayers. Looking for the cattle I’d heard during the night, I walked down the hill perplexed until I reached a large pond, where the noise grew loud. Frogs! I couldn’t see them, but they must be there in the reeds. The pond was alive with dragonflies and birds.

  The lovely quiet of the morning was suddenly rent asunder by an incredibly loud lawnmower. A man who looked as shaken by the noise as I felt – the man, I think, who’d insisted on sitting in the porch the night before – proceeded to give a brutal haircut to the lawn below the house, where the colourful paper lanterns hung. I went and spied on the monk, who had finished his singing and was looking out across the valley. It seemed inappropriate to disturb him, but he bellowed out a jolly ‘Good morning!’ He came down the hill and talked to the lawnmower man about the vegetables in the garden. It occurred to me that this was the extent of the temple: one monk and his temple family, growing their own food and making a living from the farm. The earth was a rich reddish brown, like the bark of the pine trees.

  The air was cooler and fresher than the night before – perhaps it had rained while I slept – and swallow-like birds swooped and circled in the grayish-white sky. I visited the temple buildings while the monk sat and wrote in his room and Buddhist chants played through a speaker strung up in the trees. In the main temple, incense hung in the air. The ceiling beams, twisted and curved like the trees outside from which they had clearly been made, were painted bright yellow and pink, and a pink satin canopy hung over the small bell. Further back towards the forest was another meditation place: before the altar was a little table with a wooden bell, a brass bell, an open book, a clock and a small bronze gong. The walls were decorated with paintings, the ceiling with pink silk lotus flowers. On the step outside, long brown vegetables like thin snakes had been spread out to dry.

  There was nothing ostentatious about these buildings, though they were lovingly decorated and cared for. Korean Buddhism teaches that we are all part of nature, and its buildings try to blend into their natural surroundings. They were quite different to the huge and imperialistic Buddhist temples I would later see in Japan, or those in China or Thailand with their gold roofs. Respect for nature, and oneness with it, is intrinsic to
Korean Buddhism. Harmony with nature and simple, restrained elegance are Korean ideals.

  Finally we were called for breakfast. A feast was laid out on a low table in the house: steaming bowls of rice mixed with violet beans, and several bowls of accompanying dishes, like hot green chilli peppers sauteed with sesame seeds, buttery potatoes and garlicky spinach-like greens, all fresh and delicious. There was ice-cold tea, which the others poured into their rice bowls at the end of the meal to get the rest of the rice, and drank like soup. Nothing wasted.

  The monk, who wrote out his name for me as Seok Do Myung, had also written out directions for the next stage of my journey in English and hangul, so I shouldn’t have any difficulty finding my way. I enquired when his temple was founded, and he said sixty years ago, explaining also that Yeonhwasa meant Pink Lotus Temple, and that the farm produced ginseng. It was now clear that his English was in fact very good, and his reticence last night was perhaps due to shyness or etiquette. We talked a little about Canada, and he produced a card of a friend of his, who worked for a golfing organisation in Vancouver. He told me of his plans to go to Los Angeles next year, home to 700,000 Koreans, and build a temple.

  What an extraordinary place my wandering had brought me to. I didn’t want to leave, but suddenly we were on our way.

  ‘The bus to Seonunsa is leaving at seven o’clock, and takes forty minutes!’ I was confused at first, then realised he was joking and meant his car. I shoved everything back into my backpack and got myself ready. Just down the road we picked up a teenaged boy and girl on their way to middle-and high-school. Dark-skinned with long, slender limbs and extraordinarily fine features, the girl sat up straight in the back with me, afraid even to glance in my direction, while her brother received what sounded like a good-natured lecture from the monk in the front. They got out in a village and we continued past terraced paddy fields and lush hills. Finally the sea appeared to our left, pale and shallow: Sung Hae, the West Sea, otherwise known as the Yellow Sea because of the silt that empties into it from one of China’s great rivers, so that it’s never blue and clear.

  At the entrance to Seonunsa, my monk waved himself through the gate and we came to a stop right outside the main temple compound. He pointed out the path up the mountain, which he said was very beautiful. As we shook hands, he wished me ‘happy memories of Korea’. Then he was off, returning my wave as he drove away.

  Wooden painted statues of wrathful spirits towered over me as I walked through the gateway into the large courtyard. There was nobody about, though I could hear some workmen behind a tarpaulin where restoration work was being done. A man emerged with a spray gun and a canister on his back, and did some spraying here and there, presumably against flies and mosquitoes. I’d seen it being done all over the area, white smoke billowing out of farm buildings and restaurants. I caught sight of a monk but he disappeared into a dormitory hall.

  Removing my shoes, I walked across the polished but worn wooden floor of the great hall. The ceiling beams had once been ornately painted; I could still make out the dragons on the upper beams, faded with age but all the more beautiful for it. I bowed to the Buddha as I now knew how, putting my palms together and lowering my head, then dropping to my knees, touching first my forehead to the ground, and finally my forearms with palms upturned. The role of the Buddha statue is to remind you of your fundamental nature, to help you discover it. In a way, the Buddha is your own image, and you are bowing to your own self; not worshipping another being but acknowledging your foundation, through which you are connected to everything in the universe. I stayed there a little while, contemplating the peaceful moment, before going back out to the still-empty courtyard.

  It was only 8 a.m. It felt good to be out so early. The good breakfast, green chillies included, had set me up for the day. The sky was clearing to blue and the temperature rising as I started up the path through the woods beside a rocky stream, fanning my face with my hat to keep buzzing flies at bay. Passing a six-hundred-year-old pine tree and a deep, cool cave used as a shrine, I soon found the trail up the mountain towards the other hermitages of the temple.

  It was a strain hiking up the steep trail in the heat with my heavy backpack, which contained a tent and sleeping bag in case I needed them. I was ready for a rest when I came to a hermitage called Dosolam. Two Chindo dogs stood at the entrance, their thick hair a gorgeous creamy white, with dark eyes and pointed ears, somewhat like huskies. I knew about Chindo dogs because I’d read in the Korea Herald that President Kim Dae-jung had presented a couple of them to Chairman Kim Jong-il during the summit talks. They come from an island in the south-west of the peninsula and are known as loyal watchdogs. These ones quietly watched me pass.

  I found myself in a stunning courtyard: pale sand, a shady tree, a wooden temple looking out across the valley to forest-covered craggy mountains. Conscious of looking sweaty and red-faced, I bowed to two monks sitting in the shade of their dormitory’s balcony. One was an older, corpulent man with glasses and a beatific smile. His younger companion made the fluttering downward hand gesture which looks like ‘put it down’ or ‘stay there’, but actually means ‘come here’. Sheepish but grateful I crossed the courtyard and sat with them in the shade, where a woman brought me a glass of orange juice.

  The young monk’s round, smiling face made him look much younger than the thirty-five years he claimed. He wore a pristine white T-shirt and beige, loose-weave cotton trousers held up by a brown leather belt: monk chic. After asking about my travels, he presented me with a satin pouch with a Buddhist book inside, and attached it to my backpack. Monks had been feeding me, driving me around and paying for my bus fares, I thought, and now they were giving me gifts again.

  ‘Thank you so much!’ I said. ‘That’s so kind of you.’

  Rolling his eyes and laughing as if he’d heard it many times, he said, ‘Oh, Korean monks are so kind!’ Then, as a loud clanging of gongs began in the temple, he led me up steep steps to another small temple built upon rock, where people were meditating before golden bodhisattvas. A young nun stood back from the building out on the rock, staring towards the temple, motionless except for her singing lips: she never seemed to pause for breath, her voice never faltered, and I felt it almost an intrusion to watch. But I couldn’t keep my eyes from this mesmerising sight.

  On the way down, the monk stopped to show me a relief carving of a seated Buddha in a pink cliff. It must have been at least ten metres high. He said it was built by Chinese artists sometime in the sixth century.

  ‘May I ask, which part of Canada are you from? I have visited Vancouver,’ he said.

  ‘Really? I’ve been living in Toronto, the other side of the country, very far away. But what were you doing in Vancouver?’ I asked, imagining some sort of Buddhist monk convention.

  He had a mischievous look on his face. ‘Bungee jump!’

  They seemed to enjoy life, these monks, so I was taken by surprise when, as I held out my hand to shake his in thanks, he simply pressed his hands together and bowed, explaining: ‘Boy and girl never hand must touch.’

  I retrieved my backpack, and the monk pointed me in the right direction and said goodbye.

  Their lives seemed a curious mix of life-loving fun and strict piety. Musing how it was decided what monks could and couldn’t do, I followed the path uphill past the Youngmoon Caves, strewn with picnickers’ rubbish, then past craggy rocks to Unicorn Peak. From there I saw again the Buddha carved into the pink rock face, now starkly visible for miles around, surrounded by nothing but green. A little higher was a smooth rock face where the monks and nuns, having finished their meditation, were sitting and talking. Otherwise, all was quiet. The summer rain and sunshine kept the forested hills sparkling deep green. Brilliant leafy valleys stretched out before me, and I had only the dragonflies for company.

  Which way was the sea? I’d lost my bearings, so I followed the ridge past a sign to something called Chamdangam, the spiders’ webs hanging across the path a sure sign I w
as the only walker up here today. Wearing my floppy hat against the sun, I got into the habit of flapping my bandanna in front of my face as I walked to break the webs, like a member of the religious sect who sweep the ground before them to avoid killing an ant. I was feeling eccentric and in a magical place where anything could happen.

  Rambling feet and rambling thoughts go well together. The energy and rhythm of walking alone encourages thoughts to develop, helps us sometimes to remember what is important. Early Christians in England knew this: the poem ‘The Wanderer’ is about seeking both physically and spiritually. These Buddhist monks valued the simple, quiet, isolated life, and so, for the moment, did I.

  Lush green hills gave way to vegetable gardens then to a circle of natural wooden buildings surrounding a spotless empty courtyard, where a rough stone trough stood, filled with spring water. I took the scoop and poured some cool water over my face. The empty courtyard of Chamdangam, another hermitage of Seonunsa, basked in sunlight, absolutely still in the heat of the day. Suddenly, a car drove up, breaking the silence. A few monks got out and went to sit on a rock in the shade of a tree. When I put my palms together to bow to them, they waved me over.

  ‘Hello! I am Chi-bong.’ The young man who spoke English was another cool monk. Slim, with very short hair, he wore a wide-brimmed straw hat, his pale grey cotton T-shirt and monk-pants loose on his slender frame. Oh – and he had a lovely smile and sparkling eyes. There were just six monks living here, he said. He had arrived five months ago, from a hermitage on Cheju Island, the semitropical volcanic island far south of the mainland. He was allowed to stay at any temple he liked, but he’d chosen this place here because it was so beautiful and peaceful. Just as he said that, the sky was filled with the noise of jets flying low overhead. We laughed together.