Winter is Coming

Wontong-Ri

The main road through the town

The view outside my window

Rice

Winter is coming and I don't think I'll be ready. This morning, the water puddles had frozen, not to mention the snow covered mountain tops. It's November, it snows until March! 
So before winter comes and the snow covers everything, I'd like to tell you about my little town.


Wontong-Ri is in Gangwon province, 40 minutes from North Korea. It's a rural area but there are a lot of military bases here so the town is full of soldiers (sad boys that have to enlist for 2 years) and nothing else. We have 'town', a bus terminal that gets you out of the town but most precious of all, we have RICE. The Koreans love of rice has no equivalent in South Africa. They have rice everything - cake, noodles, sweets. 


Life here is very different overall. There's no space in Korea so people live in apartment blocks, a drive through Seoul will really shock you and they're still building some more. People park on the streets, there's no crime in my town so on the odd occasion they'll forget to close the windows. I walk home at 9pm from my piano lessons and have no worries that someone is hiding in the bush somewhere, my piano teacher doesn't even lock the class room at night. (I'm going to miss this)


There's so many good things about Korea but at times I think it comes at a price. Korea has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, the kids just do school for most of their childhood, then there's the military conscription for men, then there's the pressure to make money, get married and have children. They're pressured to conform to society, being different is not encouraged, this includes your hairstyle, the way you dress and sexual orientation ("there aren't any gay people in Korea"). 


I'm glad to be South African. I miss home.