Courtesy Korea Tour

Edward J. Taylor writes: ‘As John Dougill, the editor of this Writers in Kyoto webpage, has been posting about Korean Shamanism at his blog Green Shinto, I thought that I’d submit a travel piece about a two-week meander up Korea’s east coast in 1997, playing connect-the-dots with the country’s sacred Buddhist and Shamanistic peaks, which was no mean feat in winter.’

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I awoke to find that my watch had died. Despite this, I was still on time for my early bus to T’aebeksan, a modest mount of 1566 meters, but regarded as one of Korea’s most sacred mountains.

A group of middle-aged couples paid for my admission ticket, so I hiked with them awhile, not sharing a common language, me acting as their Sherpa guide up front. The pace was slow, with a lot of stopping to fiddle with equipment and arguing about whether or not to wear gloves. I thought it respectful to stick with them, since they’d paid for me, but gradually the distance between us grew, and I continued on alone.

It wasn’t long before the path grew a little treacherous. With spring coming on, the snow had melted and refrozen, then was covered again with a fresh coat. This created an incredibly slick surface which covered a mountain road for about two kilometers. At the crest, I descended a stone staircase, which ran beneath a sort of Indiana Jones-like pulley system leading to Manggyeongsa Temple, the highest elevation temple in Korea.

My approach set some dogs to barking, and a nun’s head popped out a window to shut them up. As I turned my head back to the trail again, a strange man was right in my face, grinning. I indicated that I couldn’t speak Korean, pointing to my ears and shaking my head. He answered this by pulling his hat sideways to show one of his own ears. I waited for him to say something, but he simply stood there, grinning. So I walked back up the steps, looking back once to see him standing by a payphone, which he was apparently guarding.

The trail grew steeper, the ice slicker, making the ascents slow and the descents perilous. I dealt with the latter by literally sliding from tree trunk to tree trunk, with no hope at all for footing. At the top, the snow was thin, covering a trail that led along the ridge to an old worn shaman’s altar, now little more than piled stones. On the next peak was another altar, and walking toward it across the ridge, I was blasted by a cold wind that seemed dead set on stripping the skin of my face to the skull.

A sign on the true summit gave a brief description of the mountain, as well as a warning that hunting and breaking branches was “immoral.” But looking around, I assumed that tossing cigarette butts and hawking up huge balls of phlegm was okay in the eyes of the gods.

The adjacent altar was about two meters high and rounded like an old medieval turret. Amidst a number of candles in the center was a stone platform littered with food offerings, surrounding a pig’s head, the mouth stuffed with money. As I was fumbling with my camera, a Korean man clad in robes came and yelled at me, “America! I love you!” He shouted this again, pumping my hand excitedly. After repeating this a few more times, he then gave me a big bear hug. I of course could do little more than laugh and hug and shout back, “I love you!”

Finally he stopped and with a thumbs up asked, “Agassi?” From me, thumbs up.

“Yeah!” from him, and a big hug.

“Clinton?” Big hug.

“Hillary?” Big hug.

So for a minute or so we stood hugging each other, yelling “I love you!” back and forth, until another hiker, who turned out to be a Korean living in San Jose California, walked up and said, “You two must really love each other!”

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For a piece by Edward J. Taylor on watching the World Cup see here, and for a lengthier travel piece on Havana, Cuba, see here. For an account of the Silk Road see here, and for Sri Lanka see here.

For a full-length interview with Ted, please click here.