밀양박씨제실 (전통가옥체험): We were Making Tteok! & Other Stuffs!)

We were making our amulets^^. Well, it is for fun. But, for those who believe in this, they might as well use it as it is real for them. Basically, each of us was given a small round wooden plate on which we wrote down our wishes. 

Enough of the classroom, we were then ushered into the wilds where we would reach a tomb of of one of the family clan 'Park' called Park family of Milyang or Miryang. (밀양박씨).
On our way we found lots of natural wild plants. The first one was as shown on the picture. I forgot what it was, but one thing for sure, it lets out a distinct smell just like 'kemangi' back home in Indonesia. What a weird as well as intriguing to find a similar plant with almost the same value and use.

Got some and brought them back home.

The pack of city hurdles like us was happy walking up the trails into our destination. It was a bit chilly, yet the sun was shining brightly that made some of us struggle to adjust themselves with the increasing altitude.

Finally we arrived the tomb of the first Park family on the hill. This patient lady was the one who kept explaining the whole thing along the way and down the hill.^^

This is practically the view we saw as we stood facing the mountainous areas in the area. In fact, the tomb was deliberately set up in this very place since the feng shui is the best. It is kept discreetly by the mountainous area surrounding it with a flowing river downstream beyond. 

As we were walking back down the hill, we saw numerous hard-to-miss stuffs, like: stuffing up your stones as a token of your prayers. Some people do make this--a typical thing we may be able to find on mountains or near-temples site on up the mountain.

Wild flowers just sprung up everywhere we looked. They just looked so awesome.

I uploaded this picture on my other entry. But, anyway..this is also something we saw along the way when we were climbing down the hill. A nice place to relax, eh?

Now came the time when we had to compete against each other in pounding the dough to make tteok or rice cake. Never thought that it would require us to let out such an energy to do this.

But..hey..it was so fun that we even wanted to do it again and again.

The girls with huge wooden hammer-like tool pound the dough right. With synchronized timing and move, we managed to make the dough elastic enough to shape into tteok.

Here came the process of making the dough into shapes as we wanted them to be. We were told that we would get a prize for the prettiest tteok we ever made.

Without further ado, we clung to our hands under the scorching heat of the sun--about noon, actually. They say that too many cooks spoil the broth. But on our case, too many hands turned out to be quite helpful.

What are these? These are chaegichagi in the making. Well, it is sort of pastime plaything that people used to do. It is made of paper wrapped and knotted in such a way with a round metal wrapped inside it.

Then we cut and sliced the paper into long pieces so as to make it swirl and whirl while we toss them into the air with our feet. That's basically how we play with this so-called chaegichagi.

Here they are!!

What could be more fun than being on a gama and transported to other places without having to walk. Well, this was used by the princess or royal families ladies. So they said.

Our program was then marked with the gama game. Poor all the guys who had to carry the gama...ouch it must have been so heavy.^^

Then..lunch was ready. We were asked to make our own lunch, though. Most of us were then so tired to start with it. But, the churning stomach lured us to start ...

 

The group photo in front of the 예절교육장. It is too far to make out who's who.

OKAY, I'll make it bigger. Still, ....

The last picture I took of the whole facade of the school. See the blue sky? Se the clear sky? See the green hills where we hiked to see the Park's family tomb? See the whole picture where we'd been, right?

On our way back home, we were taken aback and so surprised to find out that just a few meters away from the school, there was a LAKE!!!! Gosh, how come that we did not know anything about it.!!

Had we known.!!!!

These strawberries-like plants were just wild flowers by the lake. All of these pictures--sadly--were taken from inside the bus when we were leaving the are.:( sigh!!

Gosh..gosh..gosh...

The simplest reason as to why we did not know that it even existed was because the time we arrived at the school 밀양박씨제실...was late at night..it was so dark for us to make out where we were.!!!

We were like stranded in the middle of nowhere. Well, indeed we were. But once again....had we known that we were just a walking-distance to see the lake, we'd have gone there and had some activities right by this lake. 

Oh, before forgetting all about this. I should probably have mentioned that this place was the location of KBS's famous variety program called 1박 2일  or 1 Night 2 Days. I took the picture of the hosts' signatures as the memoirs and token of their presence in that place.

So, above are two maps showing the location of the place we stayed during weekend 

on October 5 - 6, 2012.

  

Good Bye.....!

Fengshui or 풍수 (風水)

I just finished translating this interesting article about Fengshui. I find it interesting to share. This article is originally written in Korean in the Korean language textbook for Indonesians who are learning Korean language. 

Sejak dari dahulu telah dipercaya bahwa tempat yang airnya bagus, udaranya segar, dan sinar matahari bersinar terang adalah tempat yang menurut fengshui bagus untuk ditinggali. Bila tinggal di tempat seperti itu, siapa pun yang melihatnya sudah barang tentu percaya bahwa tubuh akan semakin sehat, pekerjaan terselesaikan dengan baik, dan keturunan hidup sejahtera.

        Berbagai macam cara untuk menemukan tempat baik seperti itu telah mulai dilakukan dalam waktu yang sangat lama berdasarkan berbagai pengalaman dalam melihat segala sesuatu yang tertuang dalam, bumi, langit, dan alam yang semakin lama semakin detil dan terangkum rapi. Setelah melalui proses perkembangan ilmu, muncullah apa yang disebut dengan fengshui (風水) saat ini.

        Fengshui atau pungsu bisa digabungkan dengan kata 'jiri' sehingga bisa disebut juga dengan pungsujiri (風水地理), sedangkan jenisnya terbagi dua, yaitu fengshui eumtaek (陰宅) dan fengshui yangtaek (陽宅).

        Fengshui eumtaek terkait dengan lokasi tempat orang mati disemayamkan. Sedangkan fengshui yangtaek terkait dengan lokasi tempat orang yang masih hidup berdomilisi atau tinggal. Dalam hal ini, fengshui eumtaek terus menerus mempengaruhi para keturunan yang masih hidup dari para leluhur yang telah meninggal. Secara luas hal ini bisa dilihat dari adanya istilah '묏자리 풍수' (fengshui moetjari 'fengshui lokasi kuburan') yang telah menjadi semacam kepercayaan tradisional orang Timur di mana mereka melakukan ritual pemujaan terhadap leluhur sebagai dasar kepercayaan mereka. Dengan kata lain, jika orang tua atau leluhur yang telah meninggal disemayamkan di tempat yang baik, maka pengaruh 기(gi,氣) atau energi positif akan terus diterima oleh keturunannya yang berarti seperti menerima keberuntungan. Memang, apabila yang pernah hidup disemayamkan pada tempat yang baik, maka para leluhur yang telah meninggal pun dari balik kuburan tak akan keberatan. 

        (Dalam sebuah cerita Korea) ada seekor katak hijau yang tak pernah mendengarkan perkataan orang tua. Dia menggali kuburan di pinggir kali, maka setiap kali hujan datang dia selalu khawatir jika kuburan tersebut terhanyut yang akhirnya membuat dia berduka. Memang, bila orang tua atau leluhur disemayamkan di pinggir kali, maka hati keturunannya pun tak akan tenang. Wajar juga bila mereka yang meninggal pun tak akan nyaman di dalam tanah.

        Sementara itu, fengshui yangtaek terkait dengan tempat tinggal atau lokasi rumah orang yang masih hidup. Dewasa ini sering pula disebut dengan saenghwal pungsu ('생활풍수'/ 生活風水) atau fengshui kehidupan; atau fengshui interior karena berkaitan dengan tata cara menata interior yang saat ini menarik perhatian khalayak umum. Pada prakteknya, walaupun para leluhur yang meninggal tetaplah penting, sudah sewajarnya bila ternyata lokasi tempat tinggal orang-orang yang masih hidup jauh lebih penting. Bila sama-sama penting maka siapa pun pastinya akan berharap untuk tinggal di tempat yang mendatangkan keberuntungan dan ketenangan bagi kehidupannya.