Korea might have been snubbed by “1,000 Places to See Before You Die,” but it did get into Catherine Price‘s new book, “101 Places Not To See Before You Die.”
Funny how Korea keeps making lists like this.
Anyway, Ms. Price apparently didn’t like the DMZ or Korea’s TempleStay program — which rather surprises me, as the DMZ is one of the most surreally beautiful places to which I’ve ever been, and I find the TempleStay program to be a rather remarkable experience (and a generous one, on the part of the Jogye Order). Really, how anyone can bash a morning yebul… or a balu-gongyang… is beyond me. But then again, I’ve never written for “O, The Oprah Magazine”: as “Ed” once pointed out, I’m just a local yokel hiding behind provincial irony.
(HT to Brian, whose post is well worth the read)
{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
Well, Robert, you’ve written for the WSJ, and that’s pretty significant, I’d say. I thought the critique of the DMZ was small-minded and unfair; the part on the temple experience, though, was certainly hilarious and did seem reasonably fair-minded to me.
I wish I had put a paragraph break between the first and second sentences. Anyway, thanks for the link–and I think Korea is a fantastic place to visit and enjoy.
One more thing: I like the photograph at the top!
I took her criticism of the temple stay as a product of our ADD cuture. “I paid for enlightenment, so where the hell is it!” She would have had a much better time at Lotteworld.
Well, obviously those stupid Asian monks are going about the whole “enlightenment” thing all wrong. It’s about time an intrepid Westerner show them how it’s really done. This whole silly business of clean food and honest labor and disciplined meditation needs to go. I mean, I’ve heard some of those monasteries don’t even have cable, let alone an espresso machine.
Perhaps Catherine took the same DMZ tour as I did, which was a freaking joke. Granted I have heard great things about the USO tour, which I did not take. Instead, I was on a private charter bus which was filled with mostly Japanese tourists and six English speakers in the back of the bus. The Japanese tour guide rambled on for 10 minutes while we got the 60 second translation from an entirely bored English speaking guide.
On to the hot spots, I felt the entire voyage was about false drama. Multiple passport checks. Warnings about taking pics. Yeah, we saw some okay things, like a line that divided a small room, but it was mostly about imaging what was, or what might have been the case. “You see that big speaker, well, in the past, they used to blurt out loud propaganda messages. Not now, but they used to.” I spoke with a pleasant JSA guard and he said we were getting a bum tour. That was the most informative piece of info during the tour.
Will I ever take another DMZ tour? No way. It’s a waste of a day, unless you go with the USO.
The non-USO DMZ tours are pretty lame, unless they’ve raised their game in thast 5 years.
The Temple Stay program is an insult to any practicing Christian believing in his/her Bible which clearly forbids worshipping false Gods and false images……maybe some gullible and unthinking people who think they are Christians will fall for it. Not me for sure…
Oddly enough, I once seriously contemplated becoming a (Catholic) monk. Ironically, this was when I was starting to cease to believe in Christianity altogether. (This probably sounds nuts, but it was in the context of my conversion to Catholicism in the most liberal–theologically-speaking–parish in Canada.)
I spent two or three nights in an abbey in Genesee, NY, belonging to the Cistercians of the Strict Observance. The Cistercians in that abbey get up every night at around 2:15 am and then again at about 5:45 am to fulfill the nightly part of their participation in the Liturgy of the Hours. (To my knowledge, the only Catholic monastic order who deprive themselves of sleep more are the Carthusians.) Incidentally, the only time I have seen the northern lights was when I was walking from the guesthouse to the main abbey building at about 2 in the morning: a beautiful memory.
I have also stayed in the less-strict Benedictine Abbey in Mission, BC, where there is no middle-of-the-night-get-up, though there is one in the very early morning.
Both of these monasteries understood how to treat visitors within the North American cultural context. Essentially, I was informed of what the monastic schedule was like, and I was invited to adhere to that as much as possible. This meant time for solitude and prayer, devotional study and meditation, and attending all the daily chants, including, as I mentioned, the ones in the middle of the night and the crack of dawn; my routine did not extend to the work period of the day. If I had stayed longer, that certainly would have been on the agenda.
In terms of work the monks do, the Cistercians in Genesee have a commercial bread bakery (and grounds), while the Benedictines in Mission are associated with a boys’ school and a farm. I know the Benedictines also send monks into the surrounding community to offer assistance of various kinds to people who request it.
It’s probably best not to overwhelm the would-be monk or nun on their first stay, though what can be said for this approach is that anybody left behind at the end will certainly be eager and enduring.
For my part, I couldn’t become a monk in the Catholic church, for two reasons: I saw no reason to maintain an ultra-liberal personal theology alongside fundamentalists (which most monks I not!) when I could simply jettison the entire belief-system anyways, nor, for better or for worse, could I make myself a eunuch. The daily rhythm that the monks have as they go about their very productive lives, filled with beautiful music and architecture, though, is something that still has some attraction for me.
In a perverse way, this kind of article is doing everyone who likes, works in, or lives in Korea a big favor by discouraging the kind of people who read this kind of tripe from ever visiting. Fuck-off, I say.
I should probably mention that monastic food is good, but there didn’t seem to be enough in either abbey. Thomas Merton, a Cistercian, once said something to the effect that the monastic life could be very difficult when someone steals your food, coughs on you in the choir, and doesn’t pull their end of the saw. He said it was even worse when it was the same person who stole your food, coughed on you in the choir, and didn’t pull their end of the saw!
Finally, there’s no going to bed at 6pm in these places, as they also have very late evening/early night chanting that must be done. These were some of my favourite chants, and I admit that this was because of the amusing way in which Mary essentially puts the monks to bed. (They pray to her, and may face an icon or sculpture of her while doing so.) The abbot sprinkles them with water, and then they retire.
Even though she probably had no experience with staying at a Buddhist temple before, she has all of these ill-conceived ideas of what it should be. Thanks the gods for two things: (1) I’ll never contribute a cent to her income by buying her book, although I’d spend a quarter on it at a yard sale (2) she won’t likely tarnish Korea with her wankerish ways again.
NathanB, you might consider asking yourself why Martin Luther, Michael Sattler, and others rejected monastic life…
It is kind of funny that she got into a temple visit and then seemed so put off by what seems like pretty ordinary temple life. But, I forgave her because I really enjoyed her writing style. Leguwan, I don’t think pulling potatoes and bowing constitutes worshipping a false god, but I guess you do. BTW I pointed out this book and commented on the Korea content a few days back and got NO credit..sniff…
Easy to sneer (at the writer), but if you go to a templestay expecting some kind of spiritual experience and all you get is the experience of getting up early and sorting potatoes, then why would you be impressed? You can go work on a farm for that kind of thing! At least the Cistercians had chants, for goodness sake.
Some people really are “Ugly Americans”…
Silver Surfer et al:
I agree, it’s easy to criticize. But I am quite certain that this woman’s poor attitude going in is directly related to the less-than-stellar experience. People want something for nothing; they want the reward, but they’re not willing to put the work in. A guy signs up for boxing lessons, and wants to learn how to beat someone up. Instead, he spends three months learning to move his hips properly. A Westerner wants to learn Chinese calligraphy, and is disappointed when, after three weeks, he is still trying to master a single horizontal line.
So, it turns out that attaining enlightenment is, like, hard. My favorite internet humorist David Wong calls this “Effort Shock,” and he wrote a great essay about it:
http://www.cracked.com/article_18544_how-the-karate-kid-ruined-modern-world.html
Setnaffa (#13), I’ll leave it to better heads than mine to explain that one.
(I’m sorry: I was waiting for a chance to use that one!)
Well I’m sure no monastery serves up the kind of supper I just ate: smoked salmon, onions, capers, and rosé wine.
Anyway, enlightenment is, as Granfalloon points out, very difficult to achieve. In many stories involving a quest, whether spiritual or otherwise, there is a figure who tries to dissuade the would-be hero from his/her quest. The heroic figure has to get past that. Similarly, the hero often has to recognize that what (s)he seeks may come in the guise of the ordinary. Because of this, enlightenment is actually not so hard after all. The Beast and the Frog embody the Prince. The ugly old hag is actually the gorgeous and loyal princess. The kingdom of heaven is within* you. “Sweep the floor as to the glory of God,” a phrase attributed to Brother Lawrence, finds its counterparts throughout the mystical and monastic traditions of both Buddhism and Christianity, including the Protestant traditions in which I was born and raised. That is to say, meaning may be found in the mundane, including the sorting of potatoes.
That said, in some traditions, the entryway to the monastic, contemplative life is made unnecessarily hard. Within one Zen tradition, for instance, the acolyte was to be beaten, and not in the manner of mere representative dubbing. At some point, spirituality practiced this way serves as a justification for coarseness and abuse. I don’t think monasteries should give up their millenia of tradition in order to get a few young people into their walls.
That said, this author was looking for something negative, and she found it, though she missed out on enlightenment. After some, er, contemplation, I’d have to agree that her attitude going in was poor. That said, it’s quite possible the monastery in question could have been more understanding of the guests it had invited.
The forgotten asterisk to the previous comment: “within you” isn’t a good translation, but it is a happy and inspired one.
I meant to strike out the last sentence of my second last paragraph in my comment #19. I had originally followed it up with a sentence about not being in the Dark Ages, but felt that that detracted from my point, and also from my realization that the author was indeed, looking for trouble.
The Jogye Order is Zen, I think, so it’s no surprise that it may look ridiculous to the uninitiated. The whole point is to use unusual and odd methods to shock students beyond the rational mind to reach enlightenment and true understanding. Zen also has the most rigorous discipline of all Buddhist schools. Anyway, her perspective and writing was pretty funny. Still, for a seasoned traveller, you think she’d try to understand a bit more about the places she visits.
I’m not an expert on Korean Buddhism, but I believe the Jogye Order includes embraces both Zen and scriptural schools. I’m assuming she went to the international Zen center on Ganghwa Island.
I’m sure a temple stay does wonders for some people, but all of my interaction with people _after_ they had one left something to be desired. I remember one specific young lady who seemed like she had been in that sensory depredation chamber from the movie “Altered States.”
She was like, “Awww, wow….a window….and people….” Her eyes were huge and she seemed to have difficulty focusing.
It was eerie.
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