Bullfighting Festival in Cheongdo

A few weekends ago I went to a bull fighting festival in Cheongdo. It wasn't Spanish bullfighting with matadors. At this festival the bulls fight each other in head to head combat. What I mean by that is they push at each other with their heads and sometimes their horns. The fighting wasn't all that exciting or dangerous. The bulls usually just butted head,locked horns and pushed for about 5 minutes until one managed to either scare his opponent or get a lucky poke in with his horn,then the other bull would run away and that was it. There were a few good moves made,but for the most part you sat their for 10 minutes and then there was 5 seconds of excitement.

We had a good group of foreigner's with us, about 12 of us. We sat in the stands and drank and had a good ol time. The crowds were the best part. Old Korean ladies (Ajumas) and old Korean men (Ajacees) were there and a few even fell over from being old or drunk, not sure which. there were also a lot of young Koreans and many families. It attracted people of all ages and economic backgrounds.

The festival itself had some cool and disturbing things in it. There were a lot of tent restaurants with food and drinks. There were two tents zoos,were animals like bear cubs,snakes,baby monkey's,cats and lizards were kept in very small cages and many of them were doped up. It was pretty sad but not unusual for animal treatment in Asia. There was a bull art tent, it had paintings and statues and many other bull artworks,it was actually really cool. There were places to stick your head in photos that made it look like you were in the bull fighting ring. There were large statues of decorated bulls and bull deities. Their were bands and performers and mascots and all the usual festival stuff like that.

I think the most disturbing and interesting part was the row of bull pens.(pictured above is one of the bulls in his pen) It was quite sad to see these huge beasts kept in such small spaces and it was also amazing how there was just a rope between you and them,of course they were all chained together through there nose rings which I guess would have made a stampede very unlikely,but I was still hesitant to stand in front of them for long. Many of the Koreans seemed to enjoy taunting them which seemed cruel and foolish considering that if they did decide to charge I'm sure it would have led to a all out stampede and may deaths and injuries. The bulls were taken from this area one at a time by some handlers. Many of the bulls in this area were noticeably upset and were doing the hoof in the dirt charge signal they do before charging at something. I found this part of the festival to be very inhumane while the actual fighting seemed very natural and the bulls seemed to enjoy it, but they do the same thing in the wild when they are fighting for mates.

I would recommend this festival to anyone in Korea it happens in Cheongdo around the end of March and the beginning of April every year. Cheongdo is a a train stop between Daegu and Busan. I also wanted to mention one last thing I thought was interesting. The US Army had a bull they enter every year and it was the only white bull in the whole festival...

Eating Dogs and Drinking Cats

I want to start this blog by saying that I myself am an ovo-lacto-pesco vegetarian, which means I eat only fish,eggs and dairy products, no meat. I also want to mention that you should not research this topic any further if you don't want to see some pretty disturbing images of dogs being killed. I choose a friendly image for my picture because I didn't want to see any of the other ones ever again.

In Korea as in many parts of the world eating dogs is an accepted part of the culture. Generally the only two countries that have mainstream acceptance of this practice are Korea and China but in many countries there are cultural minorities who eat dog. This even happens in Canada to a limited extent.

One of the big differences about Korea is the way the dog is killed. It is believed that the more scared the dog is and the more it suffers before it's death the tastier and more "medicinal" the meat will be. In Korea dogs are beaten to death with clubs, hung slowly, burned and tortured in many other ways. The consumers of dog meat want to get the most adrenaline as possible into the meat and this is the way they go about achieving it. Dogs are also often made to watch as other dogs have this done to them.

It is believed that dog meat, called Gaegogi (gogi means meat and gae means dog) can give men extra sexual stamina. Since the dog meat industry is a billion dollar a year industry in Korea one must assume a lot of Korean men need this stamina.(I couldn't resist saying it) The meat is prepared in many different ways. Their are traditional stews,soups and barbecues. The meat is also made into fermented drinks that can include the penis of the dog for an extra "medicinal" energy supplement.

I have known many foreigners here who have tried eating dog for the experience and several who do it on a regular basis. I don't think I would eat dog even if I ate meat, but that is easy to say since I don't.

I also know that cats are eaten in Korea in a fermented drink too. They are also killed very inhumanly,usually they are stuffed in a sack and then beaten to death against a wall and then liquefied into a drink. I don't know much about this, just that it is done.

When you move to a foreign country you have to be willing to accept the cultural differences that arise but this is one I will not accept and will never just ignore. If Koreans want to eat dogs I have no more of an objection to it than to eating other animals. But they need to stop the extremely cruel way that these animals are killed and treated. On the other hand this is not much worse than the way chickens are treated in the US....

Yellow Dust

When I first arrived in Korea last May it was near the end of the yellow dust season. We have now entered the beginning of the season,which happens during spring. The yellow dust also known as the Asian dust comes from northern China and floats through the air all over Asia. It is worse over China, Korea and Japan. It is not all the time but periodically it happens in the spring and has been getting worse over the past decade due to the rapid desertification and increased pollution in China. The dust contains many chemicals and pollutants.

The main problems caused by the dust are increased respiratory problems, even people who normally don't suffer from these ailments can have problems. It also causes less visibility, at times it is like a light fog. This dust can also cover things and cause them to turn yellow. This is the most significant at airports where decreased visibility can cause canceled flights and also run ways and planes have to be cleaned when they are covered in the dust. It can also kill plants, harm coral, make animals sick and even kill smaller ones and it also effects the yield and quality of crops. I have asthma and it is slightly worse during these times but it hasn't been that bad but it is not as bad here in Korea as it is in China.

Many countries have tried to help solve this problem but it is still getting worse. Korea,Japan and the US among other nations have offered both financial support and materials to help combat the problem such as trees and sulfur filters. But China will only accept help if they can decide how to use the support which means the trees often get planted in areas where they won't help like next to highways in the wrong part of the country. The money can be used anywhere the government wants and the filters are stored and no factories are forced to use them. So the help has no effect on the dust due to China's mismanagement of the resources.

This dust can even reach as far as the U.S. and it effects global weather and air pollution. In certain parts of China the air can become so polluted it becomes deadly and fatality rates can rise almost 2% during these times. There is not much one can do except stay in doors during the bad times and wear a mask when they go outside. Many people including myself wear masks when the yellow dust gets bad.

Here is a link to wikipedia Asian Dust page if you want to learn more.
Asian Dust on Wikipedia

Konglish

In Korea there is a language that is a hybrid of Korean and English, it's called Konglish. Konglish originated during the Korean War. Koreans would adapt English words that sometimes had the same meaning and sometimes had similar or different ones but regardless they would pronounce these words incorrectly and Konglish was born. Generally these words end in E and they add an E sound to the end of the word were the sound is suppossed to be silent, like Orange. They will pronounce it Orange-gee.

Also many times words in Korean that sound similar to English words will be used and the meanings of the Korean word will change. An example of this is haen-deu-pon (핸드폰; "handphone"), we use cell phone but they have adapted one of their words and most Koreans call it a hand phone even if they speak English very well.

There are many other examples and I have included a wikipedia link if you want to learn more. But the last one I want to mention is the incorrect use of grammar on signs, stationary and clothing. In Korea most t-shirts have English words on them and 99% of these sentences are grammatically incorrect. This picture is one that a friend of mine found on the web, I just liked it so I am using it here and it shows how Koreans have no idea what they are wearing. They all wear English shirts regardless of there ability to understand what it means and this kids parents probably didn't know what this meant or they thought it was funny, who knows....

Wikipedia Konglish Link

Domestic Violence,Razor Knives and Assaulting the Cops

Earlier in the year I posted a friends essay about violence in Korea but I wanted to talk about the subject a little more myself. In many ways Korea is much less violent than the US or England. They have very few guns or weapons. The youth do not form many gangs, although they due exist. It is safe to say that serious life threatening violence is much lower here in Korea than in the US.


In Korea the students carry razor knifes around to cut paper and for art class. No one attacks anyone else with them.(I'm sure there are exceptions to that statement but they are rare.) In the US if you were to carry around one of these razor knifes you would be suspended or expelled and possibly charged with a crime and sent to jail. But no one seems to worry about it at all here. They also will sometimes bring air soft guns(plastic bb guns that sting when you are shot with them) to school sometimes. Sometimes the guns are taken away, sometimes they are just told to put them away and not bring them again. Even though these guns are relatively harmless they would also be just cause for suspension, expulsion or incarceration in the States.

Koreans view guns as if they were the black plague. They often ask how I can sleep at night in America without worrying about when I will get shot as if it was a certainty. They probably get this opinion from TV and movies because while we have more guns in the US than almost anywhere else in the world, I still don't have any friends or family that I know of that has been shot or even shot at. I have seen guns many times of course but never has anyone actually shot one except for in controlled recreational uses. But never the less Koreans assume we still live in the wild west were disputes are handled with guns in the streets.


That said there is a lot of domestic violence in Korea. I live in a relatively liberal, middle class part of the US, so maybe there is more domestic violence in other areas of the country. But in Korea it is not uncommon to view acts of domestic violence that in the US might happen less frequently but would be behind closed doors. Plus if I am seeing this amount just imagine how much must happen behind closed doors here. People just seem to accept it here. My second week here a buddy of mine and I got into a fight (it was more posturing and pushing than actual blows) with some douche bag because he pushed this girl to the ground outside a club and was about to kick her. My buddy yelled at him in Korean to stop and he also called him something to the effect of a dog fucker. After that the guy ignored the girl and rushed over to my friend,he picked up a sign and started waving it in the air. He didn't have the guts to actual hit my buddy, but he kept yelling and pushing him and eventually me for another 5 minutes, even as we walked away. Finally we got tired of it and pushed back and then he left. As a foreigner you can't actually hit a Korean regardless of who's fault it is you will be blamed. Luckily my friend had been here for 4 years and knew this otherwise my stay here might have been very short. Not that violence was needed because in several instances I have noticed that if you are aggressive here the people will back down quickly, its all show. Plus we just wanted him to stop attacking the woman which he did when he focused his intoxicated anger on us.

In Cleveland were I'm from if you did this it could get you shot, even in the suburbs were I grew up it would lead to a fight for sure. But here in Korea the men only seem to like to get in fights with there women or when the odds are stacked in there favor. Of course this isn't a theory that should be tested as there are people here who like to fight just as anywhere else. This is just a generalization. Plus men who hit women are usually cowards, this is true everywhere even in the States.

This wasn't the last time I saw domestic violence up close. There was a guy in my old apartment building who used to beat his girlfriend on a semi-regular basis. He almost always did it behind a steel door. We would call the cops but they didn't seem to care. One time he was beating here outside and the cops were called and he hit one of the officers. He was taken to the jail but was back home and hitting his girlfriend again within the hour. After that we stopped bothering with it, his girlfriend didn't seem to want us to stop it and the cops didn't care.

I have witnessed 5-6 acts of domestic violence in my 10 months here and heard what I thought were a few more. It seems that Korea is somewhat like America in the 50's where no one wants to get involved in other couples problems and they just ignore it. That seems to work for them but my friends and I can't seem to adopt this cultural trait.

With that said in general Korea is a less violent place than the US. I always feel safe here no matter where I am,that is unless I am sticking up for some women who is usually just upset that I intervened anyway. I have learned here that it is better to just walk away as the women here don't seem to mind being beaten or at least they have accepted the fact that it will happen to them. Each culture has it good and bad sides, in Korea violence is no exception.