Connected or estranged?
It’s August and they’re ripe. My watermelons, my oriental melons (참외), my cucumbers — all ripe! I’m not really a gardener. I’m an early childhood educator spending a few years in Korea: learning, writing, living.
When I was a kid, my family always kept a vegetable garden and a raspberry patch. Every weekend, my sisters and I (brothers are what other people have) had to lend a hand with a bit of weeding and watering. We loved it of course. Just kidding — loathed it. Unbelievably, my parents, who really did the bulk of the work, actually seemed to enjoy it. Now I understand. When I go to my small greenhouse every evening to tend my fruit and vegetables, I’m not exactly excited but I know what my greenhouse time does for me. I come out feeling. . .good. Refreshed, even.
I’m lucky: local farmers in their fields from dawn to dusk must not feel that way. One white-haired farmer from nearby occasionally stops by Yeongwol Community just to socialize. But he can’t stay long. Too much work to do.
While my gardening is just an attempt to grow what we would otherwise have to purchase, I am happy to be getting the full Korean countryside experience. From what I’ve observed, anyone who has even a tiny patch of soil, grows vegetables. Those who don’t have ground space use styrofoam boxes. In a high-tech society, the commitment to home gardening is a precious cultural trait. In a high-rise society, it’s hard to keep. I read somewhere that 6 out of 10 Koreans live in high-rise (5 stories or more) apartment buildings. There are a lot of pros to urban life, but there’s a big con: estrangement from nature.
When city-dwelling friends visit, I want them to feel relaxed and at home in the Korea that I myself am still growing into, but it’s a scary place: mosquitos bite, bees sting, and cicadas and frogs and errant roosters keep you awake at night. Then, if creatures are quiet, the lack of noise is even scarier. It makes us uncomfortable. So we get out our phones, we put in our earbuds, and we miss something we needed. As author and professor Stephanie Bennett wrote in an essay for a Plough Quarterly issue,
Silence is a necessary counter to the relentless preoccupation of our multitasking minds. . . .
Bennett’s words are easy to agree with, but harder to act on with our brains accustomed to a dizzying pace of life — shallow, fast, and noisy. Although I am not a high-rise resident of urban Korea, I still have to make an effort to find silence. Since early May, coaxing life out of sandy, nutrient-deficient soil has given me a daily opportunity for quiet. The work completely absorbs my usually divided attention and restores my connection to nature. I feel good, and the produce tastes even better.
