Dong-Su Jeong is many things. A Buddhist, a Teacher, an Alexander technique practitioner, an anglophile, an exercise nut, and a truly wonderful drinking partner. From our very first day Professor Jeong was a great (if slightly erratic) friend. He once took us on a whistle-stop taxi tour of Seoul, which included the foot of two mountains, an organic food store, the World Cup Stadium and surrounding parks, the Han river, a bridge from which he liked to meditate and a park built in a water processing plant. He fit it all into about 4 hours then dashed off as quickly as he’d shown up.

He took us out to a Korean musical one night. It was called ‘Subway Line Number One’. He laughed uproariously all the way through, this gave us much vicarious pleasure. He loved Tony Benn and never failed to bring him up whenever we went out. He was very jealous of our Labour Party. His image of it was derived from his 1982 stay in Britain; he seemed unaware or unconcerned with Labour’s recent watering down. He despaired over the lack of choice in the Korean political system, claiming there could never be any change from relentless capitalism. The more he drank the sadder he became about this and the many other issues he couldn’t change. He was a great help to us during our time in Korea and never asked anything in return.

Michael looked after us when we first arrived in Korea and became our friend. He is Australian and loves music and travel. He had been in Seoul since the Olympics in 1988, a thought we could never get our heads around. He had become fairly disillusioned by the time he left (shortly before us), we were astounded he’d lasted so long. We used to walk up and down the many mountains in and around Seoul with Michael. We hope he is happy back in Australia.

I don’t know the name of this man and I’m not sure I really care. He kindly agreed to take us on a Buddhist temple stay one weekend. We met him through the couple that ran our favourite bar. He, like them, speaks no English. How we ended up going away with him is a mystery to me now. I think it was decided over an octopus curry one breakfast time. He picked us up on a Saturday afternoon and drove us seven hours out of Seoul to a place I’ll never know the name of.

Twenty minutes after we’d set off I took such a dislike to him that I attempted a fleeting getaway. I had some grading to do and I knew any time spent with this lunatic was going to be wasted time; wherever it may have been. I pleaded with Heidi and Monique to let me go; to let me out of the un-air-conditioned smelly mini-van he’d brought for the occasion. I have a keen sense about these things, and language barrier or no, I knew this man was a clown. I didn’t think he was dangerous or evil or any such thing, just incredibly childish and stupid. He had the most irritatingly smug grin you ever saw in your life. His voice was brash, his manner oafish. I said I had too much work, I felt sick, I hadn’t had enough sleep, and I had stomach cancer. I tried everything I could think of but they just wouldn’t let me! I wound myself up so much that I nearly ran out of the van when he stopped at a traffic light.

The trip was an unmitigated disaster from start to finish and I handled it all very badly. The first problem occurred when we arrived at the temple to be told that we were fifteen minutes late and wouldn’t be allowed in. The point of the trip was to stay in a temple (a cultural experience, something I think I was brave to agree to in the first place). The monks get up at three in the morning and pray for a couple of hours every day, and we were supposed to be joining them.

I suppose I felt a sense of relief at this stage. Nothing makes me crabbier than the prospect of a sleepless night and this had now passed. We went to a nearby restaurant and had a nice meal with plenty of beer and plum wine. We sat on a raised platform outside the restaurant; we were lit up by lantern light, beautiful white moths the size of bats hovered around the table and I really thought for a short while that I may have been hasty. After we’d finished, that man bought a six-pack of beers and we headed for a hostel. At 12:50 he cracked open a beer and brought out his alarm clock. He set it for 2:00am. I laughed and gestured nine with my hands. He laughed and left it at 2. He had failed to inform us that we were still going to the ceremony even though we weren’t sleeping in the temple. I was enraged. Why did we go out drinking until 1am if we were getting up at 2?

At 2:00 he sprang to life like a 6-year-old on Christmas Day. I think I’d had about ten minutes sleep. Before going to bed he had spent so long in the bathroom hacking up loogies that none of us had been able to sleep. The sound of his joyous wake up call brought me close to murder. What, in a million years, could justify getting up after ten minutes with a nascent hangover? I wouldn’t get up if the sun exploded.

There was a thirty minute walk to the temple and there were no streetlights and no moonlight. I had to use my phone as a torch to guide us through the forest. Its dim blue glow cast an eerie light on the forest floor. My head was spinning and I was hallucinating. I kept seeing flashes of light and hearing high-pitched blips and tones inside my head. Heidi and Monique were fine. That man walked briskly and confidently ahead of us. We had to walk much faster than we felt was safe just to keep up. There were a few moments when I’d put my foot down not knowing if there would be any ground to catch it. We’d crossed a number of bridges so I think that was a definite possibility.

The temple suddenly emerged from the darkness. For a moment it was breathtaking. It was mostly to do with the quality of the light after our sojourn through the pitch-black forest. Giant golden statues of Buddha gleamed in the lamplight, sitting transcendent before rows of pink-robed monks, all rising and kneeling in unison. Everything was crisp and shiny and the low melodic chant of the monks soothed my distressed head.
I had assumed that we were going to be sitting at the entrance to the temple and watching the ceremony for ten minutes with the other westerners, then going back to bed. There were no other westerners and we were led straight into the temple, given prayer mats, then instructed to get on our knees. I made crazily exaggerated pleads with my face aimed at Heidi. She didn’t look at me. I whimpered desperately, “I am not praying!!!” She just looked at me, then got on her knees. I can’t sing a Christmas carol as the hypocrisy strangles me, and here I was on my knees in a Buddhist temple surrounded by bald monks.

There were about four stages to the praying, you had to squat, kneel, lie and stand, whilst chanting Sanskrit. I knelt; I looked at Heidi who was going for the lie down, then I looked at Monique who was already on the squat, and then plopped onto my backside and crossed my legs. There! I thought, I’m not bloody doing it, and that is that! I’m not a Buddhist for God’s sake why would I pray? I put the same question to Heidi afterwards and she said that she just said, when in Rome (marvelous). I had to sit there immobile like a sore thumb for an hour whilst Heidi, Monique and a hundred monks chanted and prayed. I was exhausted, it was freezing cold and my bony arse hurt like hell on the wafer thin prayer mat. Cultural experience?

I was mad at myself for coming, mad at that man for bringing us, mad at Monique and Heidi for being such sheep and making me odd man out. Mad at religion in general for being so nuts. Those monks did that every single day. This is so incomprehensible to me; I still can’t get my head around it. Maybe I am a prize candidate for conversion.

At 4:30 am when we got back to the motel that man set his alarm for 5:30 am. There was to be vegan gruel at 6:00 am and the possibility of washing all the monks’ dishes once they’d eaten. I had had enough and when the alarm went off I just ignored him. Heidi followed suit. Monique, the most intrepid member of our little group, went with him.

We got up at nine or so and were ready for a proper look around the place. Unfortunately, our captor was ready to leave and only granted us 30 minutes grace to look around. He had a big day planned for us. He was wildly ambitious and had obviously been plotting for a week.

Our friend Michael Glass had a phrase to describe the helplessness of being trapped with a Korean host. It was ‘hospitality prisoner’. Koreans, like most people I suppose, love sharing their culture and showing you around the place. The problem is that many Koreans are unable to put themselves in our western shoes, and imagine the kind of thing that would genuinely interest us. When Koreans travel they tend to do it in groups, individual needs have no place in this arrangement. All decisions are collective, nothing can be born of impulse, what one does everyone else must do, what one eats so must everyone else. The number of times we had food ordered for us as if we were small children was comical.

That man had imagined a very Korean kind of tour for us. There wasn’t a minute to spare. He took us to a beautiful mountain covered in tea. Twenty minutes after we’d arrived he was ushering us away quickly as there was another place he wanted us to see. We had a photo, why would we want to stay any longer? We tried to take a look in a craft shop as we were looking for a Korean tea set. He came in and stood over us with his arms folded waiting for us to leave. We left.

He drove south. Seoul was seven hours north and he went south for another hour. Chagrin is a nice word for the feeling I had. One of his plans for us, it turned out, was to take us to a beach on the south coast and treat us to a local delicacy. We arrived at a little fishing town. Toothless peasants abounded. He sneaked off. We walked onto the beach and kicked the sand around with our feet. Heidi and Monique had a little paddle. Ten minutes later he returned and beckoned me over with a big grin on his face. He said, “Shiwol?” I said, “Aniyo!” He said, “Shiwol, shiwol, shiwol?” I repeated, “Aniyo! Aniyo! Aniyo!” I shouted Heidi over and informed her, “He’s going to try and make us eat live octopus.”

He emerged from a house with a bowl of wriggling legs (see victuals page). Even Monique wasn’t having any of this. We told him we were going to a proper restaurant, as we were hungry and we weren’t eating live legs. He would have to eat them himself. We’d completely had it with him and ignored him from then on. He followed us to a restaurant of our choosing, we ordered, he sat there quietly and ate his legs. He would proffer one to us every now and again but he knew we weren’t biting. His hosting days were over. I just couldn’t make the effort any more and didn’t speak to him for the rest of the day. I felt bad for him, he was a little child and we had ruined his fun but I wanted to be home and be in charge of myself again ASAP. Monique sat next to him on the way home. She has infinitely more patience than Heidi and I will ever have.

Coming soon...