Salmon Festival in Yangyang

I meant to arrange that all my friends would be at the festival at the same time. After learning that Zovar would be there at 12:00, I arranged that my coworker friends would be there at the same time. I did, however, get the day wrong. D'oh!

Anyway, it seems that my diverse friends, and I, myself, all had fun.

And how could you not, playing in the river, catching giant fish in your bare (okay, gloved) hands?

I have all my photos in order except for the first. I meant to tease the makers of the sign after showing how much fun I'd had. Oh, well.

Salmon can't buy you happiness. Below is the saddest man ever to have a fish in each hand. Here is his blog (it's not that sad).

See, you can be happy, even if you don't catch anything.
But don't steal the carvings!
Hooray! He did catch one.
After catching them, you could them inked and a poster made. KwandongAlex is shown helping.
There was more to eat than just salmon. Either that or he was beginning to apply his Santa beard way early.

Salmon, like piranha, can skeletonize a man in minutes!
After the excitement, I took the little guy to Jin Jeon Temple. I've seen great pictures of fall colours but I didn't see a lot of colour here. Well, I did see a lot of green.

We had high winds Saturday, Sunday and today. I worry about fires as the reservoir at Jin Jeon temple is dry.

Jumpcut is closing

My old computer came with Microsoft Movie Maker but it didn't have the power to handle video - I could organize stills and add narration, but couldn't edit video. Luckily, I found jumpcut online and was able to edit video there. Well, it closes today (which is why, in addition to laziness, I am not going to bother linking).

Previously, Jumpcut didn't allow you to download the video you made, although you could export them to blogs and such. Well, a few old blog posts will now have holes in them.

Now, as the service closes, they are enabling downloads. I may plug those old holes or just place them in current posts so everyone can enjoy them again.

Here, is my son, age one and a half, dancing to the very quiet drums at Naksan Temple.

Updating news on temple stays

I enjoyed my temple stay five, wow - five, years ago at Naksan Temple.  Since then, of course, large portions were burnt in a forest fire.  The temple looks good now, but no longer hosts temple stays.

In Gangwon Province you can stay at Baekdamsa, which might be a little closer to Seoul and is newsworthy in it's own right.

Many years ago, an ex-president (Chun Doo-hwan) was charged with corruption and took a sort of coward's way out - he sought asylum at Baekdam Temple until people calmed down.  This story has no current significance, by the way.

Read about other temples offering overnight stays in the Korea Herald.  Read about my temple stay here.  GI Korea also visited the temple.

UPDATING my update: Naksan does offer Temple Stays.  I will try to find contact information as I have misplaced the info I was given.

I thought it was the non-Buddhists who were upset about the hiking fees.

The title is awkward or misleading, but "Buddhists angry again over temple entrance fees" in the Korea Times describes a problem that began two years ago.

Starting January 1, 2007, National Parks dropped their entrance fees but entry did not become free. Temples on the park grounds continued their fees (which had been about half of the original fee) and often increased them.

People have been upset about paying the fees to the temples when they visit the parks exclusively to hike and do not even go near the temples. More (actually, not much more, but..the same?) from this website at the time.

Finally, a group sued.

A provincial court’s ruling banning temples from collecting fees from mountain hikers has drawn strong protest from Buddhists.

The Jogye Order, the largest Buddhist sect in Korea, is even considering shutting down gateways to mountains owned by Buddhist temples.

The reaction came out after the Uijeongbu District Court ruled Tuesday that Jajaeam, a small temple on a mountain in Dongducheon, northeastern Gyeonggi Province, should return the entrance fee of 1,000 won ($0.65) each it had imposed on 22 climbers, who jointly filed a suit last August.

Commenters at the Korea Times are disgusted that the hikers are upset about such a small amount of money. I understand their (the commenter's) feelings but wonder if the hikers are more concerned about supporting Buddhism.

As a foreigner, Buddhism, even after ten years in-country, is novel and exciting for me. I don't mind giving them a little support.

At the same time, I am an atheist and unwilling to support religion in general and would not be eager to pay the fee if it supported a Christian church, for example. I understand that my viewpoint is contradictory but I hope it is not hypocritical. I am for supporting the temples for purely cultural reasons, even though I do not want to support any religion.

If the weather is good, I'll be hiking tomorrow at Seoraksan and I'll let you know about the fees there.

Early April, the season of temple fires

Luckily, it is not in Gangwondo this time. Ah, luckily is probably not the right word. Fortunately for Gangwondo, it is not a local fire. Yeah, that's better.

A fire in Jeollanamdo threatens the Buddhist temple, Unju-sa.


Photo from Naver News -story found through Koreabeat.

To read about a local temple fire, see here for my coverage of the Naksan temple fire, the day after and a year after.

Free entry to national parks? Not really

Since the beginning of 2007, the Korean government has made entry to its parks free.

Since the beginning of 2007, the Buddhist temples residing in the parks have begun collecting increased fees at the gates.

The result is a slight decrease in the total entry fee (and it wasn't very high to begin with).

Still, hikers who are there simply to climb are less than eager to pay fees for temples they won't visit. For me, the only problem would be waiting for the ticket booth to open in morning or trying to climb over the gate (I like to start my hikes, even short ones, early).

So far this year Odaesan, between Yangyang and Gangneung, has had about 90,000 more visitors than the same period last year (455, 854 people over 364, 290 last year). The increase is attributed to the reduced fees.

The Jogye Order, the nation's largest Buddhist organization, collects money from climbers in national parks where its temples nestle.
The group insists that it is inevitable to levy fees on climbers because its temples occupy 8.9 percent of national parks and require funds to maintain roads leading to the temples and cultural assets.
``We can't help but charge some fees because the temple surroundings are ruined as more climbers stream in since the government abolished admission fees,'' an official of the Jogye Order said.
He said they will protect their property rights, saying roads, camp sites and parking lots on the group's land, which the government built without the order's agreement, are illegal.
``Unless the government restores the ruined nature around temples, we will call for compensation.''
About 19 other temples in national parks levy fees of up to 3,000 won, almost double the admission fees the government levied previously.
Some temples impose toll fees on cars running on roads near temples, arguing they pass through land owned by the temples.

I'm torn on the subject.
I was (somewhat) surprised to learn that the government had built illegal roads and such and can see that the temples need to raise funds to maintain their grounds. Asking the congregation to pay is not reasonable as these are tourist sites and most visitors have no connection to the temple, or any temple.

Still, reading that some temples now charge double the government's admission fee and are making toll roads damages the temples' credibility.

Temple grounds extended to include entire parks?

This is interesting. Beginning January 1, national parks dropped their entrance fees. However, the temple fees jumped to almost the level of the original combined fee.

This is the most surprising part for me. I didn't realize that, in 2006, when I paid 3,400 won to hike to Ulsan Bowi, around half that fee went to the temple. It does explain why the entrance at O-saek,(the hotsprings and far from any major temples) is, again, about half the Seorak-dong rate (closest to Sokcho). If I hadn't read the article, I would have figured the rate had simply dropped a few hundred won.

Some hikers aren't welcoming the (slightly) reduced entry. They don't intend to visit the temples and are upset to pay for them.