Temple stay

This is something I had read about before coming here and was really anxious to do. But time slipped by, so I thought I would leave here without staying at a Buddhist temple for the weekend But luck has it that Kerry (AKA Ing-young), one of my Korean co-teachers, has a dad who defected the family to be a monk. It was about time for her to visit him anyway, so she invited Mara and me along.

We had a little 2-hour road trip through the pretty mountains and trees changing color. One of my favorite things about this country are the rest stops along the highway. They are always crowded and lively. You almost want to pull over to every single one to see how it's different from the last and what it has to offer by way of fresh food, souvenirs, entertainment.

We pulled up to the temple Saturday when it was starting to get dark. Right before we got out of the car, Kerry told us that we were to be incognito. Apparently, the rest of the temple isn't supposed to know that Kerry's dad is Kerry's dad. Or that he even has a family. It was a little hard to believe that no one at the small temple would be suspicious of a young woman visiting him (with two foreigners in tow) who happened to look just like him. But I didn't worry about it too much.

As soon as we arrived, we went to the main temple and learned the proper way to bow. You take a cushion and place it in front of your feet as you are standing. Then, you bend your knees and curl all the way to the floor and then straighten yourself up again (no hands if you can) to a standing position. You do this three times to each of the godly figures (there were 2 in this temple). We were learning this by example and imitation toward the back of the temple. There was a large group of young boys - all orphans who live on the temple grounds - in the front. So when everyone faced the other wall to bow to the second statue thingee, we were seen. The looks on some of those boys' faces were priceless. We were probably the first foreigners some of them had ever seen in real life, and there we were right behind them in their temple during worship. Kerry told us that after the service, outside the temple, the boys were saying how they couldn't wait to meet us.

Right after that, we were directed into a formal meeting room to say hello and bow three times to the "big monk" who ran the place. After that, we went up to the living room of the monks' living quarters (only 3 monks at this temple, including Kerry's dad). He prepared some green tea for us in tiny tea cups. We asked him questions through Kerry. The best part of the conversation though was when Kerry told him her English name at our school, and he said, "like John Kerry?" How great is it that a monk living up in the mountains who barely knows English immediately thought of John Kerry when she gave her name? I loved that, of course. We left that place and went to another building with a kitchen to eat dinner (finally somewhere serving vegetarian meals in Korea!) It was do-it-yourself, in that you serve yourself and wash your dishes when finished.

The all-boys orphanage on the temple grounds has 18 boys of all ages and 1 house mother. We decided to go to the big house to meet and play with them. They were all doing homework, so once they warmed up to us, we helped them with it and just talked. They were really curious to find our home cities on the maps in their history books. One little boy, probably about 5 or so latched on to me and was showing me his school book and reading to me in Korean. It was so sweet how the older boys were helping the younger ones. It was just a really nice atmosphere and not depressing at all, as I had imagined an orphanage might be.

We had to go to bed early (traditional Korean way - on the heated floor with blankets) because the first prayer service was to be from 4-6 am. We woke up and went to the temple, where it was just Kerry's monk dad, another monk, an old man, and the three of us. Lots of chanting and TONS of bowing down to the ground. I thought I did a pretty good job, but the two times Kerry's dad glanced back to check on us, I was doing something wrong - not sitting correctly (because my legs had fallen asleep) or something else like that. He was happy we were there, though. After those 2 hours, I expected it to be light outside, but it was still pitch black and coooooold. We went to the kitchen and had breakfast, then went back to sleep. We were awaken again before the next service from 10-12. This one had a lot more people and A LOT more bowing. We seriously went all the way to the ground over 200 times between the two services. My legs were burning. Buddhists must have great legs under those robes.

After the service, we had lunch and met with Kerry's dad again, where he gave us Buddhist pendant necklaces that he got while studying in Thailand. It was so sweet of him. We took photos (coming soon) and said our goodbyes. Everyone at the temple was so kind and welcoming to us, and I feel like I learned a lot in those 24 hours of immersion. I'm not a huge religion fanatic, but I always like learning about them in a broad sense, and this was a good introduction to this particular one. When in Rome...