:-)
My entire stay in Korea has been very pleasant. I have learned, grown and realized how truly fortunate we are as American’s – from poor to rich. We can choose to live in a clean environment even if we are poor. Please don’t take offense if you have the same luxuries in your country. I can only speak for America.
Okpo is a shipyard village. The shipyards have tall buildings in the village that the workers live in. They are very basic as near as I can tell. The shipyards obviously have money, but I have no idea where it goes. It does not seem to go back into the village to make it a better place – but I am not sure if that is the choice of shipyards or the governing parties – or if there is seriously no money to do so. Okpo is a confusing mixture of ancient and modern. Modern is not the norm.
Walking around the area, you begin to get a real sense of how hard the life is here. There is a constant sewer smell and many drains that lead me to believe it is not all rain water. No matter where you go in the village, you are not more than 20 feet from the sewer drain, so that odor is everywhere. The fire hydrants are… well, inadequate is an understatement. The wiring is scary.
The majority of the bathrooms do not have (water) traps to keep the sewer smell from backing up into the bathroom. When you are in a ‘classy’ restaurant here, you cannot tell how nice it will be from the outside. It could be above a strip club, and have waiters dressed in tuxes, then you go the rest room, where you have fancy toilets (another blog), immaculately clean bathrooms – and the sewer smell. In a restaurant that turns your stomach even if you cannot smell it IN the restaurant.
The people are all pleasant – and most do not speak English. They seem to look cross all the time; but it is not true. If you get their attention, they nod and smile their entire face lights up, and then they give you the same courteous nod. I find this is most true with the women. They are so deeply engrossed in what they are cleaning or working on that they never really ‘see’ you until you pause or they don’t speak your language and are afraid you may ask them something. If you do try to speak, they try to communicate; us in English, them in Korean. It is quite fun when you actually make a connection and can be frustrating when you are both sincerely trying but cannot understand.
Most of the homes around Koeje-do Island are very modest and very small. At home we would call them run down and shacks. I said most, I did not say all. The island people are very careful and uses the land wisely. I don’t know if this is true all over South Korea or just here, but there are terraced gardens and rice patties in the oddest places – tucked in nooks and crannies we would never even consider at home – like beside highways, in alleys and in the medians on the highways.
The markets have people selling their wares while cleaning what they are selling between sales. The meat is hanging from racks in the open air. The trucks are bringing in the veggies, seafood, fish, seaweed; you name it, as near as I can tell the Koreans eat it. This is where it gets stomach turning. The odor of all the smells; the fish, seafood, seaweed, kimchee (fermenting vegetables), combined with smells of the sewer, dirty streets and the rotting food they have tossed aside is more than a sensory overload. There is no describing it. I am visiting it, expats (people working here from other countries) stay short term in it; but this is the life the people on this island live – and know no other.
Grocery stores are very limited in what you can buy – and they have all open air food as well. The ones I have been in are very old and basically clean but nowhere near what we would expect in a neighborhood small market. The brooms are homemade, very old and used to a stub. This is a hard life.
Children here go to school all day, and most go to a secondary school after school for further education. We saw some high school children getting out of school at 9:30pm yesterday. Young children hold hands of younger children and take them home from the bus with no parent in sight. The children are working at the markets on their down time. The shoe repairman was working in his outdoor shack at 10pm tonight. It is freezing cold here, his open shack unheated and in his face I say exhaustion, but he was working – his wife sitting beside him polishing an old pair of dress shoes.
The children here love to see Americans. Their face lights up and if they are brave enough, they say “hello!”, and giggle when you say hello back. They chatter in Korean among themselves and giggle some more. They can seldom say more than that, but they are very excited that you understood the hello. There is no describing the happiness you see in their faces.
I have seen fishermen at home in the USA. They work extremely hard. One man in particular sits on a corner near our house and he cleans fish on a wooden bench outside while sitting in a lawn chair. He sells crabs as he is doing it. He works hard. He also has a lawn chair to sit on, a water hose to wash his stuff down, access to bleach to sanitize and a good knife to cut with. Behind him is a nice house. Even the camps have some luxuries to make life a bit easier. I am not sure that is true with the majority of the people here.
I know even with what I am describing, there are people in the world that have it much worse than these people do – but what I am trying to relay is that American’s are so incredibly fortunate to live where we do. We are wasteful, spoiled and ungrateful. We do have access to most anything we want. There is nothing out of our reach - if we make up our mind to get it. We have resources to help us get there.
With that thought, I am going to end this blog with the ‘real’ pictures of my visit in Okpo. As you go through them, please really look at them; the people, the weather, what is around them, and then look at their faces – I hope you see the real story. God bless you – He did bless us.
1 comment:
Amazing pics, Sis. I'm glad you enjoyed your visit. Now back "home" to Singapore I guess??? We love you lots and hope you recuperate from your travels quickly.
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