July 6, 2011 : 2011 년 7월 6일

Today, we went to Grandpa's field early in the morning to harvest the potatoes.

The potatoes are between the trumpet flowers (tall stuff in the front) and the tomatoes and squash on the trellis in the back.

Here are the boys by about 1/3 of the potatoes we brought back.  Neither one actually dug up any.  BJ can't stand the feeling of the mud on his skin.  I couldn't explain sensory issues in Korean (they're hard enough to explain in English).  And AJ was afraid to get his hands dirty--although he had great fun jumping in and out of the field, across the little bridge, and by the stream that is now perhaps meriting the name stream after the recent influx of water from the summer rains.

For those of you not familiar with Korea, I want to show some of the really cool things about where my husband grew up.  Korea is horrifically overcrowded.  According to worldatlas.com, the US has a population density of 83 people per square mile.  In Korea, that number is 1,309.  Now, only 30% of Korea's land is actually habitable (according to "A Teacher's Sourcebook of Korean Art and Culture" available at http://www.pem.org/aux/pdf/learn/asia_curriculum/korea-tsb.pdf although I've heard this statistic many times before), which means that when you're walking through city streets, there are far more than 1,309 people per square mile.  You're actually nearing 4,000.

That's one thing that makes my husband's rural town so special; it is so very rare, at least this close to a major city.

Of course, to watch a documentary of Korea, it seems like a third world country with unpaved roads and people carrying their crops on their backs.  True, some of that does exist, but your average first grader has his or her own cell phone, rides several buses to academies, completes his or her own homework partially online, and navigates his or her own way to and from school and several afterschool activities.

So when I show you the pictures of the fields below, please recognize that this is not what all of Korea looks like and much of it is to make the very best use of space.  If it can be farmed, Koreans will farm it. (Seriously, the first time I came to Korea and rode the bus from the Incheon International Airport, there was corn growing in the drainage ditch along the side of the road.)

Lettuce and squash growing inside the dried streambed/drainage ditch.

Teddy bear scarecrows on a mountain field.

A traditional burial site...wedged in between two fields.  Now, I include this also because I have visited several graveyards in Ohio with my grandmother that are completely surrounded by fields and, in some cases, livestock.  I have never quite forgotten the sheep munching contentedly over Noah and Grace, may they rest in peace.

Fields still toward the base of the mountain.

Someone drying their socks on a tree across the stream from a field (what else?).

A small field further up the mountain.

And this would be the path that would take you back from that field.  To my left is a slope of about 60 degrees, and I forgot to take pictures of the various rocks you need to climb over to get this far.  How would you like to navigate your vegetables down that?