The third and final part of my temple stay adventure – if you have kept up with my accounts thus far, you have my undying love <3 I hope you enjoy this last, slightly longer instalment! (If you haven’t read the first two, you can find them here and here.)
Day 3
Again my night was fraught slightly by vivid dreams and waking moments, though of course I can’t remember them now. Sleep was a black worn fabric, threadbare in some places, ending with a finality with the sharp trilling of my alarm and a pale blue light finding its way into the dark room. I washed my face, feeling before seeing how tight and swollen it was, and wondering why until I realised later it was the consequence of the ramen we had last night; and so I remembered why I don’t eat ramen, and also wondered for the nth time what it is in it that makes the face swell, and only the face. I had not much appetite but ate rice and kimchi and other side vegetables for breakfast, and some slices of apple to round off the meal. There was to be a funeral in the morning and so I helped prepare for it; the calmness and nonchalance with which the flowers were brought and arranged and the fruit was stacked in beautiful gleaming pyramids impressed me in the early morning. Sitting on the floor of the temple underneath the lanterns, lowered so that they were just above our heads, I watched one imo and Cheondo sunim placing the apples and tomatoes carefully in their bowls before bringing these with some difficulty to the altar. I think it was with the apples that I bumped the top shelf lightly and was afraid for a moment that they would all come tumbling down – but fortunately they did not, and fate permitted me to return to carry out another task of their bidding.
Once the preparations had been finished (or at least my part in them) I weeded with Keun sunim. It was my first time doing so. Hands in gloves, squatting, hacking at the ground with a short hoe. The sun came upon us quickly and so she called for a stop; and I decided to go on a walk. I took the path I had done that first day. The rice paddies lay flat and mirror-like, stretching into the distance; the small green shoots were evenly space and upright, standing tall like young men, young soldiers in rank. Upon reaching the forested mouth of the mountain, I had intended to sit down somewhere along a sheltered path and write or draw. But the incessant buzzing of invisible flies in my ears and face prevented me from doing so, and I was forced to turn promptly around after sitting for a record of less than a minute. It was just before 9 when I reached the temple. I remember thinking how much I had done today already, when it would be before I usually woke up, or just as I was awakening. It seemed as if I had been at the temple for days and days, when in reality it was only two or so. The early mornings make the days feel longer. The heat was beginning to solidify, and so I made the executive decision to take shelter in the communal room and do some colouring, and perhaps a sketch of Bultan, the temple dog.
Approaching the room through the semi-outer corridor you see that the door is open and a pair of shoes by the shallow step leading into it. As you stand in the doorway Cheondo sunim turns her head and greets you. “Where did you go on your walk? … Wow, all the way there? You’re back quickly, then.” You take off your shoes and enter properly, placing your bits of paper and books on the table and drawing out a sheaf of paper on which a mandala has been drawn. After a few less-than-successful attempts at capturing Bultan’s kind face from a photo taken the day before, you decide to set your efforts to something different. For nearly an hour you colour, filling the design with blue and green and orange and yellow and red. Finally it is finished; you place the pencils back in their flat steel box, neatly and in order, like thick coloured matchsticks, and leave. You have been told to clean your room before you go and you do so now, with what limited materials there are, sliding cumulated sheets of tissue about the room on your socked feet. Again you bring your core supplies outside, upwards, underneath the bandying branches of the sonamu outside the living room building. You write a message to the monks on the back of the drawing; you sketch bits of nature, snapshots of branches, a single tree in the shifting face of the mountainside. The funeral has started, and the amplified sound of the sunims’ chanting ring out across the grounds, banishing the soft silence and dimming the bird calls. The clacking of the moktak accompanies them. At first the sound is droning, strange after the contented pool of gentle birdsong, the shifting of the wind; yet soon the two voices are melded in a haunting harmony, an unearthly sound, in which their normal, bubbling voices are transformed into the carriers of some otherworldly message. You check your watch face; the time reads past 11, then 11:30, and you wonder when lunch will be served, and if it will be as normal. Soon the chanting stops; words, their source unseen, are recited instead over the loudspeakers, and a short while afterwards you see figures make their way into the dining room. The moktak sounds its call again, this time not from the temple, but from the covered pathway leading to the dining room, where Cheondo sunim stands. “Come and eat lunch!” she calls. “Yes!” you call back, and tidy your things where they lie on the decking. As you dawdle somewhat, Keun sunim slides back the mosquito netting on the lower floor and calls at you to come eat. Though your legs are still a little stiff from the bowing yesterday and the walk this morning, you manage the steps with relative ease; on the small landing outside the door you wait for her, watching as she grasps the banister and tackles each step decisively, slowly. She is quite old, though you do not know her exact age; living on such a steep incline must be difficult, you realise. You slide back the door and together you enter. Abundant piles of freshly plucked lettuce recline lusciously on plates, escorted by small sides of doenjang. Four tables, instead of the usual two, have been set; and as you fill your bowl the family of the deceased enter, two middle-aged women and a girl and a boy. Cheon-do sunim introduces the girl as your donggap – you are the same age, a coincidence that is meant to foster intimacy in Korea. The lunch is bimbimbap with more sides than usual, including tofu, accompanied by a small bowl of doenjang jiggae and a plate of mountain strawberries. Instead of the usual imo sitting opposite you the well-built lady with short-cropped grey hair and a powerful voice sits down; she had been cooking in the kitchen but you are not sure who she is, or whether she is part of the family. You assume she is not, as she is not sitting with them. The imo next to you with her cute flat well-formed potato-like nose tells you to eat well, as she always does, and looks at you as you take your first bites. “Don’t stare at her while she eats, she’ll feel uncomfortable” says the lady opposite you; but you ensure her that it’s alright. Imo next to you says something and looks at you for affirmation, which you don’t understand but affirm anyways, and the new lady across says, “She understands?” to which imo replies, “Yes, she understands everything!” with a note of pride in her voice. During the course of the meal she offers to wrap some lettuce for you to bring back to Seoul, but you don’t want to inconvenience her so you struggle to find the words to reject her offer politely; she offers you some, and you agree, since it is easiest. You wrap the jumble of vegetables and rice in fan-like pieces of lettuce, parcelling them into your mouth; you pick at the raspberries daintily with chopsticks, prompting the lady opposite to do the same.
Once you finish eating and wash up your dishes you are called by Cheondo sunim, who along with the new lady is sitting with the family. She says some things about the girl and asks you to shake her hand; both you and she are shy, but her mother (so you assume the woman to be) pulls out her hand and you stretch out your own to shake it, before withdrawing it quickly. Cheondo sunim laughs and laughs, and says something in between – but you cannot understand everything she is saying, so you stand stiffly and embarrassedly with your hands clasped before you until she gets up and tells you to come with her to take tea down below. You descend into the heat and sunlight before she realises she has forgotten her phone, and you are sent up to fetch it. Back in the living room, the lights have not been turned on; you, she, and the new lady and Keun sunim take your tea in the dark, before the new lady is off and you finish your tea and get ready to depart. Having stained your white shirt with kimchi juice during lunch, you now squat in the bathroom, scrubbing at it with shampoo and water and your fingers; you leave it out to dry on the rack outside before heading back up to the living room to drop off the envelope and give them your drawing.
The envelop slips neatly into the box allotted for it, without being seen; the drawing is handing over, and during their exclamations and remarks of surprise you bow to Keun sunim. And then you are all moving towards the entrance, the exit, and towards the car; but you had left your backpack outside your room, so you bow the others goodbye as you walk down the steps to fetch it and get into the car as it crunches down the drive. And you are off, the road stretching out before you amongst the rice paddies set like glinting tiles in the flat plain land. The heat is sweltering and felt in the car, in very air itself, which now no stiff breeze disturbs. Keun sunim blasts the aircon and lowers the windows, raises the windows, lowers them in alternance to give you both some relief. Soon there are not only fields with long, low-lying greenhouses, but gas stations, buildings to break up the greenery, and you find yourself sliding into the city. Above your head on a green sign you see the words “Ulsan Station” and an arrow pointing to the right. The drive is silent save for the whir of aircon, the ticking of the indicator. Through the window outside various buildings offer themselves up as the station only for you to discover that they are some company building, or a work in construction, before catching a glimpse of the bold words “Ulsan Station” in the distance. The car slides into the drop-off lane; you hoist your backpack onto your lap and slip out the car, calling a thank you as you do so and saying you will be back again. Clad in your mask, you make your way through the baking sunshine into the station. On the platform the air is still and thick; the train has not yet arrived and so you stand, waiting, waiting, for the vessel to bring you back to the pumping heart of civilisation.
…
The train rocks its way through a high-ceilinged station and a tunnel marked with orange lights, bobbing slowly, lazily, like a boat on water. Now gritty clouds of yellow flowers amongst the low foliage are sliding past, and you know you are nearly there, have nearly reached your destination; to your searching eyes come the cars in their parking lots and the corrugated walls of apartment complexes without end or beginning; and the sky is no longer a clear blue fact but a hazy, far-off myth in this constructed, breathless, blasted heart of civilisation.
