Foreigner Foodies - Day 5: Jeollanam-do

It’s 3am and my taxi is pulling up at the production offices. I am no longer exhausted so much as numbed. I didn’t get the sleep I intended to in the afternoon, choosing to work off some emotional rather than physical exhaustion by chilling with a friend and playing some billiards.

         A replacement had been found for Leigh: Cherish, a Philippino with superb Korean skills, probably largely due to being married to a Korean. The story that had been “written” for us was that Leigh had to leave, but the Cherish was his friend he has sent to join us in out travels. This was established on camera with a series of phone calls, some on-camera confusion, and a fantastically faked scene in which we met Cherish as she approached the back of the bus.

         This is one of those bizarre quirks of reality in TV land, a cinematographic fog-of-war, if you will, whereby the characters (as played by we foreigners), are unable to see anything until they approach to within a few metres of it, whereupon we all spot it simultaneously and, with grandiose gesture and jaws agape, proceed to exclaim and declaim with uniform enthusiasm. Of course this allows the cameras to record us spotting something impressive and then swivel swiftly around to take it in, repeating the discovery process for the audience, and I suppose that this is one of those obvious conventions about which TV viewers do not complain, forming a tacit agreement - suspension of disbelief re the visual media - with faux-documentary makers.

         With our opening bus-conversation sequence filmed we all tried to get to sleep. I don’t know how it will be sold in the final cut, but the night seemed to have that particular dead-hours darkness that no one could mistake for the human hours of the day. Cherish had shown herself in our group conversation very willing to lead the conversation in bubbly Korean. The prevailing language of the show had now shifted heavily to Korean with the departure of Leigh and addition of Cherish, which seemed to make the Producer happy.

         We were headed to Jeollanam-do, and Jindo in particular, Korea’s third largest island after Jeju and Geoje. I had been to both Jeju and Geoje, so was happy to be ticking Jindo off my travel list. To my mind Jindo was famous solely for the dogs of the same name, a small breed of pure-white dogs unique to Korea. Unfortunately dogs seemed scarce in Jindo, though it being an island, we found seafood plentiful and fresh.

Leigh wasn't with us, so the only pictures I have are my own. Here is a wall. You're welcome.

         I don’t like seafood. I can eat it, but it doesn’t really tickle my fancy, so on this day it was slightly harder to rustle up for the cameras the requisite enthusiasm for what we were cooking and eating.

         I was hardly thrown straight into a seafood feeding frenzy, however. We sat on the bus for hours after arriving, waiting for crew to arrive separately, then waited hours for locals to be found. Our massive bus was parked incongruously in a tiny backwater amongst a group of several-dozen low Korean buildings. The closest to us proclaimed themselves community buildings of some sort. Occasionally a single lonely old Korean grandmother or grandfather would shuffle slowly up or down the road past us, but otherwise the entire community was dead and silent. No birds wheeled in the cloudless sky, nothing moved, and no sounds could be heard.

         As Korean busses tend to do, our bus soon became unbearably hot, and we clambered down to mill around pointlessly, unable to wander away and explore, and with nothing to see or do in the immediate vicinity. Quiet conversation wandered back and forth across the group as we likewise wandered the parking area.

         Eventually our hosts were found/awoken, and a greeting ceremony was filmed. Then things picked up pace. We were soon in the front yard of a traditional Korean homestead, performing the various tasks necessary to prepare a traditional Jindo meal. The heavy focus of this meal was 굴 (oysters), and so I volunteered to stoke the fire.

         At some point, though, out of some deranged and short-sighted curiosity, I wandered across to see what was going on with the other group – they all had their oyster picks in hand and were hacking away rhythmically, violently at a mountain of baroque-looking shells.

         Before I knew it an ancient Korean woman had a raw oyster on a thick black iron hook, and was busily trying to insert it in my mouth. Cameras trained, and unable to avoid the choice morsel, I gulped it down. Incredibly salty, cold, slimy. I can feel gritty pieces, either of broken shell or sea-floor detritus, between my teeth. And yet, I can understand why people enjoy the taste of oysters, prize them, consider them a delicacy. Some people not me. I have to struggle simply to keep from showing outwardly that I am struggling not to regurgitate the slimy snotty creature on public television.

Look: Fish!

         The battle won, I say my thanks and make for the safety of the cooking fire. I am halfway there when the sadistic old woman overtakes me and forces me to swallow down another of the drippy, mucusy snot-balls.

         The meal itself, however, was very enjoyable. I managed to stealthily avoid the oyster-based dishes interspersed across the table in favour of the beef soup and seaweed bowls. We sat on the floor at low Asian tables in the front courtyard. I was please to find the general tenor of the meal remarkably pleasant. We were hosted by several village elders (such rural townships in Korea being almost exclusively the domain of the elderly), who were overwhelmingly friendly and welcoming.

         After the meal we were informed that the oldest of the ladies at table, a weathered, wooden-faced woman, had in her day been a famous folk singer. With very little encouragement she was soon singing the song 아리랑.

The lady in question.

         I had heard this song before, in several places, and been unimpressed. On this occasion, however, a different mood took me. It was perhaps the combination of traditional food and setting, as well as the time-worn features of the singer, but it seemed to me as though, as I watched her sing this antique song, I watched generations of Koreans, going back millennia, singing this song and others like it. In this tiny hamlet in Jindo, a tiny capsule of rural, pre-industrial Korea lived on, and I felt I watched time roll back.

         The sensation was a humbling one.

I was and am struck by my own lack of culture and heritage – I do not regret the lack, but only wish to observe the winding path my ancestors took to leave me with such shallow roots.

         That night we were treated to more of the same, as we joined the locals in rehearsing traditional songs and dancing. We were encouraged to join in, however inexpert we soon proved to be, and were taught some simple steps after joining a snaking, skipping conga line of sorts.

         I have mentioned how the rural areas of Korea are now populated almost exclusively by the elderly, their children and children’s children all having migrated into the big cities. This gathering of the townsfolk demonstrated and exaggerated this tendency – the friendly, welcoming, happy people were worn, heavily lined, and browned. The daily toil of their lives showed in their faces. They were meticulously ugly. 

The men dance.

As do the women.

We were also instructed in a basic drumming rhythm, before being made to sing a traditional song of our own countries.

         We had had some warning of this ordeal, but had not fretted about it overly. Our Korean producers had not seemed to understand that western societies have not the monolithic culture of Korea. In Korea, country equates to culture, and that I, as a South African, might claim a different heritage, or none, made no sense. I struggled with this requirement, greatly. The only thing I could think of to sing that would not be either heavily political or Afrikaans, was the National Anthem. As someone strongly opposed to nationalism this didn’t sit quite right, though I reflected at least that it’s multilingual nature was reflective of a multiculturalism I approved of.

         I would need some prompting for the lyrics though, as I could not remember all the words in all five comprising languages. As I attempted to retrieve the lyrics on my phone I was exhorted merely to sing what I knew. Under such pressure I ended up singing the last two verses: “Uit die blou” and “Sounds the call”. I regretted it straight away. Choosing to represent my country by singing the only two verses of the National Anthem in “white” languages… it would pass unchallenged in South Korea, fifty million people oblivious, but it didn’t sit well with me. Ah well, let this be my explanation and explication, if necessary.

         I had been awake, more or less, since 2am, as had most of the cast and crew. Yet the Producer insisted on a party to celebrate the last night of filming. A party, and also that we must all meet the following morning at 7:10.

         Suffice to say that we overslept, the Producer included. Fortunately his complaints the next day lacked bitterness, perhaps out of awareness of his own culpability.