Of Abalone and Artillery

Greetings Fellow Daredevils:

I've been known to put some strange things in my stomach. I'm probably even better known as a controlled risk taker who will push the edge occasionally with what I say and do in my personal selective pursuit of experience. Since I'm supposed to be dead anyway (stroke, 1989; car wreck, 2006) and continue to convert oxygen into carbon dioxide only by the grace of divine intervention, it seems to me that taking a risk or two (or three or...) might not be such a bad use of all this borrowed time I have. In retrospect, I've probably already borrowed quite bit considering that, during a visit to Jerusalem during one of my archaeological expeditions in Israel, I eagerly accepted a proposal from the manager of the Palestinian-owned hotel at which I was staying to have his family take me for an up close and personal tour of Arab East Jerusalem with a fly-by of Yasser Arafat's headquarters at Abu Dis. Only whilst I was meeting and greeting with Palestinians in the streets of East Jerusalem did it occur to me that I hadn't told any sane member of my expedition team (there actually were one or two rational souls out of thirty which is about the right percentage for a gathering of archaeologists) where I was going and with whom. Everything worked out OK and probably was no riskier than eating the lunch I had purchased that day from a street vendor who was cooking on the sidewalk. (Hey, I had had my vaccination for Hepatitis A.) To quote from Ferris Bueller: "You have to stop and look around once in a while. If you don't, you might miss something."

(I've been resting my typing hand. Now, back to our story.)

Referencing my last post, before leaving Kyung-jong, Min-hi and her mother fixed a traditional Korean breakfast of soup, rice, vegetables and, as a special treat, abalone. Abalone is the meat of the giant Pacific clam (you've seen pictures--they're about two to three feet wide and weigh about fifty pounds). Like caviar, there's only so much of it and it's priced accordingly. Five of us shared about two pounds of abalone which I have since learned runs about 100,000 won ($80) per pound. As a special added treat, we had some really tasty goodies of odd shapes and consistency for which I was told the tongue-twisting Korean name. Min-hi looked it up on her electronic Korean-English dictionary and the translation came back "innards." GUTS??? Big clams have guts? Min-hi's father told me that eating them is good for"what makes you a man." The women ate them, too, but I didn't pursue that line of discussion further. Breakfast concluded with mint and jasmine tea of which I partook liberal quantities. Sufficiently fortified, I set out for my confrontation with the North Koreans.

Partying Down (NOT!) at Panmunjom

The best that can be said about the scene around the Demilitarized Zone at the 38th parallel is that the terrain and the troops on either side of the line look equally bleak. The entire place is an armed camp for as far as can be seen with big lines of artillery set on the ridges pointed in either direction across the border. I doubt those Howitzers and Russian made guns could hit much of value from where they are, but the effect of their presence sends a message. The North supposedly has even bigger artillery (mounted on rail cars they move continually along the border) capable of hitting Seoul. The army stops the limited amount of permit traffic (we had one) well south of the DMZ where you can look at the border and peace talks building through those big binocular-like telescopes that are popular at scenic vistas in the U.S. No picture taking is allowed which is OK because there really isn't much to see. Not many people come to Panmunjom because access is controlled (Min-hi's father knows people in the South Korean Press Corps which was the source of our permit) and the place hardly qualifies as a tourist attraction. Even from a distance the scene is somewhat surreal and I kept looking around for M*A*S*H 4077th. It's a sobering place and safe although I have to admit that I felt better about hanging out with the Arabs in the shadow of PLO Headquarters than I did staring across (OK, at a distance and through a telescope) the border at what is (with the possible exception of Jerusalem) the most bitterly contested desert rockpile on earth.

The 38th parallel divides families as much as it divides territory. They say there isn't a family in South Korea that doesn't have relative bottled up in the North and Min-hi's family is no exception. They are hopeful that the decline in tensions between North and South over the past few weeks may finally lead to some cross-border family visits. However, they have had false dawns before and one can only hope.

Summer break is about over and the second half of the school year starts next week. The special English classroom that has been under construction as an addition to the second floor of the school building is almost finished and I have promised to help get it equipped and operational before I leave. Lots to do and not enough time to do it. And (Did you get the news?) a grandson on the way. Me? A grandfather? Talk about surreal!

Luv 2 all.

A well-fed and very sober,

Teacher Bill