Shortly after arriving
in Korea there is one thing that you become very quickly aware of and
that is that Koreans are mightily proud of their seasons. For those
that don’t live here you may be wondering what I’m talking about,
so, I’m about to let you in on a little secret.
Korea has... wait for
it... FOUR seasons. That’s right, not one, not two, not even three,
but a whole whopping four! When the weather gods were handing out
climates at the beginning of time Korea hit the jackpot. They got the
royal flush; they struck gold; they got the whole caboodle. Spring,
Summer, Autumn and Winter.
Koreans love to tell
you about their four seasons. They have set activities for each one
that everyone wholeheartedly participates in. The country is adorned
with giant photographs of famous landmarks and landscapes,
beautifully capturing each season. So if you have chosen to live here
you had better embrace and join in the celebration that is Korea’s
four seasons or jump on the next flight back home.
Now those that know me
might detect a slight hint of sarcasm in my tone. Some might even
accuse me of being a tad disparaging toward my adopted country. But
there is a reason that I sat down to write about the rather mundane
topic of seasons and weather. I absolutely love the seasons in
Korea. They’ve shown me what they have to offer and I’m sold.
Each and every one of them is unique. Even the
sweat-ridden, hell hole that is a Korean summer, but more on that
later.
So why have I bought
in? The reason is quite simple. I come from England. As a kid I was
told that my country too was blessed with four seasons. But my
parents and teachers lied to me as their parents and teachers had
lied to them before creating a never ending vicious circle.
Let’s look at the
facts of the British seasons. Winters are cold and dreary. The never
ending drizzle that soaks you to the bone just sucks the will to live
right out of you. Spring has a few things going for it; slightly
warmer weather gives you hope for bright, hot sunny days, barbeques
in the garden, driving round with your friends, top pulled down,
tunes pumping out the stereo. Then summer arrives and it’s like a
kick in the gut. The temperature struggles to get into the twenties and
on those few days that it does, the rain is always guaranteed to
spoil the party.
What I’ve always
found amusing about the British psyche is our inability to deal with
extremes in weather that occasionally come our way. Take summer for
example. If the temperature somehow creeps above 25 degrees the
tabloid newspapers go to town. “Ohh What a Scorcher”, “Barmy!”
the headlines cry out. Front pages adorned with pictures of the great
British public descending en masse to beaches across the country,
their unsightly white flab protruding from ill-fitting swim suits,
frolicking in turd
ridden seas.
Winter is equally
absurd. All it takes is a few drops of whitish looking sleet to fall
down from the sky to send the nation into a mass panic. Schools and
offices shut down early and people raid supermarket shelves to stock
up for the long haul.
My seasonal experiences
haven’t only been confined to the U.K and Korea though. I consider
myself fairly well travelled and have been fortunate enough to live
in various parts of the world. Take Florida for example, where I
lived for nine months in the hip and hip-replacement happening town
of Boca Raton. They have three seasons there: hot, very hot and holy
shit it’s hot! Then there was Sydney; again they almost got the
full four seasons, but had to settle for the three that are hot, not
so hot and slightly chilly.
Which brings me back to
Korea, where there are four seasons, four distinct seasons. Each
season has the correct weather, temperature and changes in nature
that allows that season to truly call itself a season. Now, I must
admit not all seasons are created equal here. The cold bits and the
hot bits are much longer than the other bits that intersperse between
them, but each one has its own unique characteristics.
Let’s start at my
favourite season, winter. Now that might surprise some because if you
ask the average Korean and even the average ex pat, “What is your
favourite season”, the answer is pretty much guaranteed to be, “
Spring or autumn” (or fall, which is also a perfectly acceptable
word since both words came into being around the same time in
England. Fall ain’t American folks; it’s as British as Fish ‘n’
Chips!).
Korean winters are
refreshing. Sure, they are cold, but not too cold. You wake from the
snugness of your bed and step out in to crisp clean air, stunning
blue, clear skies and rarely does a drop of rain fall. When you come
home at night you snuggle up on the floor soaking up the warmth that
is the genius of Korean ‘Ondol’ (under floor) heating.
Here in Busan, we don’t
get much snow. The few flurries we do get normally send people into a
dizzying frenzy of happiness. But go slightly north or slightly west
and Korea does pretty well on the snow front. So much so that those
decent, honest chaps at the International Olympic Committee decided
to give them an Olympics. Yes, another one. First there was the Seoul
88 Summer Games and in a few years time will be the PyeongChang 2018
Winter Olympics. And do you know why Korea will be able to boast a
summer and winter Olympics? Because they have four seasons, that’s
why!
Anyhow, I’m
digressing a little. Let’s get back to the seasons. Spring. Oh,
beautiful spring!
Like pink? Like pink
and white? Like pink and white and all the colours under the rainbow?
Like pink and white and all the colours under the rainbow and
flowers? Then, BOOM, come to Korea! The sensory overload of colour
that is the cherry blossom season is quite frankly a site to behold.
For a very few short weeks of the year, the concrete jungle that is
the city I live in is transformed into a blanket of pink beauty.
Normally drab uninteresting streets bring traffic chaos as people
swarm in their thousands to capture the blossoms. Whole cities, such
as Jinhae, make their entire tourist industry dollars off those few
short weeks.
And then a few weeks
later, the blossoms fall...
It’s warm outside but
this tiny delicate pink flake falls past you brushing your cheek. You
think to yourself, it’s April, it can’t be snowing. But it is.
It’s snowing cherry blossoms.
And then comes summer.
I don’t feel like writing about summer. Summer is a piece of shit.
But since this is a piece about all four seasons, I feel it deserves a
mouthpiece. After all it is a season and a very distinct one at that.
It starts off OK. The spring flowers turn to leaves. You start
putting on shorts and flip-flops as you head out in the evening to
sit in front of the local convenience store late into the early hours
of the morning sipping on the deliciousness that is Korean beer. But
then summer decides that it doesn’t want to be friends. Slowly it
cranks up the heat dial and while it’s at it throws in a few
monsoons to add humidity hell to the mix. Air conditioners and fans
are turned up to maximum power, but still you suffer. Walking a few
hundred meters down the road turns you into a dripping, nasty, sweaty
mess that pretty much guarantees you scoring the leading role in the
next reincarnation of the Swamp Thing. But respite is at hand. Busan
is blessed with some amazing beaches so why don’t you slap on the
sunscreen and head out to the nearest one, where you can meet a
million other like-minded Koreans all scrambling for the same two
inches of sand.
What I don’t like
about summer is that it’s a bit of a party pooper. That is the
party being hosted by autumn. Autumn does its best though, actually
it does better than that and gives the finger to summer by putting on
another glorious display of colour. For those that don’t know
Korea, there are a lot of mountains. In fact it’s seventy percent
mountains and with that canvas Autumn works it’s colour magic.
Reds, browns, yellows, golds, and russets fill the landscape. Koreans
and myself head to those mountains to soak everything in. Korean
hikers are the nicest people in the world. You may have gone head to
head with the same guy in your car earlier, but up in the mountains
the rules change. We are all experiencing the beauty of another
Korean season, therefore we are one. We are the same. People invite
you over to enjoy their homemade ‘kimbab’ (rice and vegetables
wrapped in seaweed) and never leave your glass empty of the ever
ubiquitous ‘soju’.
Eventually summer
relinquishes its selfish humid grip on the weather and days become
pleasantly warm and nights start to get a little chilly. Shorts give
way to long pants and sweaters. Then that guy in
Seoul pushes the big button that starts winter again right on cue and
suddenly you are wrapped up in your thick fleece, beanie hat and
wool scarf. Winter is coming, another new season beckons, because
this is Korea, and in Korea there are four seasons.
Addendum: I would like
to make it clear that my comments about British beaches were in the
context of my experiences of them when younger. Britain now boasts
some of the cleanest coastal waters in the whole of Europe and has
won awards for the pristine condition of the golden sands that can be
found all around her coastline. You should all visit them one summer.
Just remember to pack a sweater...
