Beyond the Bushes
By Deanna Leung, a first year ETA in Wando, Jeollanam-do When she let go of trying to duplicate her old life in her new home, the sun marked her like a crosswalk… She lifted her soles and hopes high, and led herself to new places -Beyond the bushes [Featured photo by Abigail Offei-Addo]
Series from the Hwasil, a Room of Flowers and Magic
By Julia Wargo, a second year ETA in Gumi, Gyeongsangbuk-do I Darker, lighter, darker. These are the only words I hear for hours at a time, and I repeat them over and over again to myself. There’s something deeply meditative about that repetition, and about ink wash painting. Ink: solid midnight, ground out of a stick and applied to white hanji paper. Washing: the process of purification. Together, painting purifies me from beginning to end. When I arrive in the studio, I grind the inkstick until my arm is sore, and I am regretting adding too much water to the mixture. Concentrating on making the most concentrated black, one that doesn’t lighten if I leave it out to dry. Then, when the ink is ready, a pool of darkness waiting to be dipped into, my teacher picks up a brush and paints an example. There are no words in this place but those he repeats: darker here and lighter there. Understand? There are no definites, only a maybe. It is turned by necessity into a hesitant, “Yes.” I try to imitate the painting, and in the end when I am done and holding the brush under the faucet, seeing streaks in the water, that unsaid maybe echoes in my mind. II Sometimes I catch myself thinking about more uncertainties. About how 화 (hwa) can mean painting (畵) and sometimes fire (火) and sometimes flower (花). Hwasil literally translates to painting studio, but sometimes I think of this place as a flower studio. There are papers with flowers on them plastered on the walls and on the floor, where I have to step gingerly to avoid them. The only free space is the ceiling, and if flower paintings were to appear there too, I wouldn’t be overly surprised. On rare occasions, other paintings materialize. Sometimes there are neat rows of Chinese characters, or a tiger or dragon. But for the most part, I am learning more words for flowers than I ever knew before in English. The first four types of painting I’ve learned are orchids, bamboo, chrysanthemums and plum blossoms. After you’ve learned them once, you should repeat them over and over, perfecting and adding more strokes, more additions, improving. It’s a progression perfected over centuries, and sometimes I can feel those years echoing deeply when I am attempting to paint. Legacies I can’t live up to, that don’t quite belong to me, but that require respect. I am drawn to other subjects too. The lotus, stretching high out of the pond. The trumpet vine, orange and reaching low, overhanging a wall. Persimmons, plump and ripe. Goldfish in the pond, with slight ripples around them fashioned from the barest hint of ink and water. The sheer variety is overwhelming. To focus on the strength of boulders? Or the delicacy of a vase? When I leave the room, flowers are blooming in my mind and fish swimming through the air around me. The world comes alive and electric to the touch. I carry the painting and the fire and the flower inside me. III Nothing can convince me that this place isn’t some sort of liminal space where anything can happen. It’s a place where there are multitudes of blossoms and multitudes of stories. Many of them spring straight from my teacher’s mind, and his sense of humor sometimes differs from my own. One day, I am painting a bird, and my teacher gestures for me to hold out my hand. When I look inside my palm, there is a detached bird’s leg. With feathers still attached. A mild sense of horror surfaces, which I try to suppress. He’s looking for a reaction and the chance to laugh at my squeamishness. Instead, I just say, “cool,” and chuckle. Is it just a model for drawing a bird? Or something else? The possibilities are endless. The next week, it’s alcohol made from bee larvae on offer, his amused smile just daring me to try it. I can’t quite bring myself to, the murky brown color reminding me a bit too much of river water. Next, his humor lands on frogs as its object of interest. The first image he paints is of two frogs, dancing. It’s left to me to question why. The next image he draws is the same, but a snake appears. I expect danger, not what follows. The snake pours a cup of alcohol for the frogs. And the frogs happily drink themselves into a daze under the gaze of the full moon, painted in a shade between blue and purple and clear water. I ask: why? Why are there frogs, why is there a snake, why is there alcohol, and how did you conjure this from nothing, from a blank page? I don’t get an answer, just a grin and yet another story to live on in my mind. IV There are frequent breaks when my teacher vanishes for indeterminate periods of time to smoke, and the studio suddenly feels more like an average room. Four walls, a roof, air that is too hot in the summer and cold enough to see your own breath in the winter. Sometimes the breaks take five minutes, sometimes I suspect he’s wandered off for a meal or a walk or to the mountain to look for wild ginseng. I am left looking at my brush and paper. This time, when he comes back to the hwasil, he motions for me to follow. We’re on the third floor, and he goes up the stairs. What is beyond this room? What is left but rooftop? Does the magic extend beyond the boundaries of the door and windows? It’s past sunset, and my eyes don’t adjust immediately. I stumble a bit over uneven floorboards. He points at the sky, towards the mountain, and I see a flashing light. Amidst the disorientation, I feel my first burst of certainty in a long while. The magic in the hwasil was carried here to this rooftop and to me by the thread of my teacher’s path upstairs. To this place where there is only darkness punctuated by
the acquisition of my senses
by Kiki Marlam, ETA ’20 the acquisition of my senses Over the hills’ shoulders, the honey orb dips in the Geumosan Reservoir, melting to brew an ambrosia tea. Inhale. Pedal. Breathing in the crisp breeze, biking through the crunchy flecked soil. Exhale; time and reason doze to oblivion But, the moment stumbles and wanes… tripped up by the toasty scent of bungeoppangs wafting in the air, awakening my appetite. A coyly industrious ajhumma aproned in red stokes the piscean breads in the corner stall ahead. She understands the commercial topography well. Nestled near the bus stop, here a takeover of my moment is afoot. The hungry scent charges forth and my golden serene now forfeits. Time stirs, and with my reason reformed, I descend off the bike path, submitting to the acquisition of my senses. [Featured Photo by William Landers]