Visiting a temple in South Korea

One Saturday morning in April 1990, while I was stationed in Camp Humphrey’s Korea I was awoken at 6 AM by a friend of mine Dave McMahon. He told me to get up and that we were going to visit the Buddhist Temple at the end of Chinook Valley. There were four of us; Robert (Bob) Johnson and his wife Yong-Su, David McMahon and myself. We all piled into Bob’s Daewoo Le Mans and headed out from the Camp to the Temple.

While I was assigned to Bravo Company, 2^nd Battalion, 501^st AVN (Innkeepers) in Camp Humphreys Korea from May 1989 to May 1990 and we flew numerous missions north of Seoul. To get our areas of operation we flew up a valley that was basically north/south on the east side of the city. This valley was dubbed Chinook Valley due to our preference in using it as an aerial highway to the northern part of the country. At the south end of the mountain ridge that bordered the western side of the valley stood a Buddhist Temple (Yujeomsa) that we used for a navigation landmark. We were always saying we should go there and check it out, and that Saturday morning, we did.

Buddhist temples came to Korea during the Japanese occupation of Korea (1910-1945) and to this day, except for monks, there was (and still is)  a great resentment in Korea for the Japanese (I think that was understandable). We stopped on our way and grabbed a quick breakfast at a small market on the way to the temple, then arrived at the temple sometime around 8:00 – 8:30 AM. The road up to the temple had a few switchbacks then stopped roughly one third the way up the hill. From the parking lot we took the stairs. Oh my God, and there were a lot of stairs. They started out straight then as the hill became steeper, they too had to switchback up the hill. Finally, we arrived at the top of the hill.

The original Yujeomsa temple was extremely small and was three sided and open at the south end. It was very primitive and dated before the Korean war. Any structure made of wood surviving the Korean war was a pretty good feat to begin with, but this one seemed to be well preserved. As we were looking around we were approached by a young Korean monk (He was roughly 18) who gave us a tour and talked about the history of the temple. He spoke no (or very little) English so Yong-Su was out translator. The monk explained that the old temple was of historic value, they had the current temple built in the 1960s and they were building a new state of the art temple for the future.

We were allowed to tour the nearly completed New Temple, including the modern bathrooms. (Sorry, but this was something I’d never seen in before in a public space in Korea, so it is worth in my opinion mentioning).  While modern, these were not western in design. Korean bathrooms are “Squatters”. Originally they were a hole over a cesspit or a removable pan. These were bowls similar to a western toilet but built into the floor and you simple placed one foot on each side and squatted over it to do your business. There was a button flushing and aside from design worked like a western bathroom.

The entire building was impressive. The outside walls were glass, marble floors everywhere, gold inlays and it was easy to see that a lot of money was being spent on this place. The worship area itself was still under construction and we could only look at it through the doorway but it was an impressive sight of its own.

We then walked around the old Temple that was still use and finally the administrative buildings where there was a large kitchen, meeting hall and some other administrative and work/office spaces. Yong-Su was talking to the service staff that worked the kitchen and admin buildings and she offered a donation. (Giving money wasn’t required but was considered customary and I was learning a bit about Korean culture.) Since we were guests, we had a cultural obligation to bring something for our hosts, in this case it was a donation of money for the temple causes. I think since we were Americans and Yong-Su was the wife of an American they were a bit surprised at the donation and a bit more surprised at the size of it (50,000 Won) which was about $62.50 at the 1990 exchange rate ($43.00 in 2019). The staff suddenly became more animated and we were given a tour of the admin building and there was a great deal of discussion between the housekeepers, the cooks and Yong-Su. Finally, she explained that we were being invited for lunch.

She then went on to explain that she’d been trying to graciously decline but she explained to us the she was in a quandary as in her culture, if you were invited for a meal, you could decline honorably if you had something else to do but since we had no real plans she was having a hard time with that. We all looked at each other and agreed to have lunch with the staff. The lunch was pretty standard fare in Korea, mostly white rice and kimchee. We all sat in a room on the floor at the typical low table and ate. Across the room, there were a couple people sitting there studiously working on some project with colored curved pieces of finely ridged rice paper and there was a large stack if wire globes covered in white rice paper. Somewhere after the meal, it was explained to us as we were starting to walk out, that they were making petal covered lanterns for the Lotus Lantern Festival in celebration Buddha’s birthday celebration on May 2^nd.

These petals were being made by the thousands. The base paper for the petals was in a pressed curved stack roughly 3 inches long and an inch wide. They would peel off one sheet of this colored curved ribbed paper, then with a dab of paste twist the end so that it made a curved petal shape, then they would make the next one. Yong-Su asked if she could try it (it was a harder skill that is sounds describing it) and it was mesmerizing to watch them make. The next thing we know, we were all sitting there making the petals, (very badly at first) and getting better with practice. Yong-Su played interpreter the entire time (Meal and petals) as we discussed that we were Army pilots and that we flew up and down the valley and such. Lots of small talk over a period of two or three hours.

For the second time, we started to leave and then we were excitedly told that the Senior Monk had returned and he’d heard about us being there and asked to meet us. He was Japanese and he was in his 80’s having lived there almost his entire life. He was very personable and Yong-Su kept very busy explaining who we were and what we did for a living.  Yong-Su also translated his questions and things he wanted to discuss with him. It was going very well, and we were about to leave when he invited us to dinner.

This seemed to surprise the staff and really surprised us, but we really had no plans, so we graciously accepted, again. So what had started out as a morning expedition has now turned into an all-day affair. Most the staff had disappeared and it was just the monks and us for the next hour or so, there was a lot of activity in other rooms but we hadn’t paid a great deal of attention as we were talking with the Senior Monk and a 5-way discussion with 1 person interpreting went pretty slowly. Finally, it was time for dinner.

I had never seen such a meal. We were all seated at a large round low table (Sitting on the heated floor as usual) and the amount of food was impressive, the table was roughly 8 foot in diameter and I swear that it was just about as full as it could be with just about anything you could think of in Korean or Japanese cuisine. We were very strongly urged to eat out fill and we did as we were asked to do. We then had coffee after dinner which was a favorite of the Senior Monk and something he’d picked up from Americans after the Korean war.

After dinner, he invited us out on the balcony overlooking the valley and he had a very animated discussion with Yong-Su. She started to laugh with the Senior Monk then turned to use to explain. He had been explaining to her that the next time we were flying up and down the valley that we should land in the field at the bottom of the hill and come up for a cup of coffee with him. We told him we would try and didn’t bother explaining that there was no way to actually do what he requested as it was a very kind gesture.

Finally, we succeeded in leaving about 7 PM that evening and we returned to the Camp after a very enjoyable day.