Trouble Brewing!

This is probably not the appropriate forum for airing marital problems, but Susan is upset with her husband.  It seems I weighted myself the other day and discovered that I have lost at least 20 pounds since we arrived in Korea.  The doctor informs me that my blood sugar level is now normal (I was pre-diabetic) and my bad cholesterol level is now normal as well.  As Susan pointed out, while she has been exercising with vigorous walks for miles each day through the forest, I've strolled the 5 minute walk to my office each day.  Susan eats tofu and salad while I eat whatever looks good with no concern for caloric intake.  Needless to say, Susan has not seen the same improvement and finds some unfairness in her lack of results compared to my apparent success.

 

I am at a loss to explain this sudden improvement in my health.  I can only surmise that somehow Korea has mysteriously improved my eating habits.  As I look back at the changes, I do know that I eat far less bread (primarily because Susan does most of the shopping  and largely limits her purchases to sliced bread for the kids.)   We certainly don't eat as much red meat as we did in the states since steaks are close to $17.00 a pound at Costco.  Still, I have not felt particularly deprived at mealtime.  Despite our presence in Korea, our diet is largely Western.  Today I barbecued chicken for lunch.  Tonight we had spaghetti with meat sauce (Susan had tofu).

 

When we head back to the states in about 4 weeks, our first stop will be at In N Out Burger.  I'll get the double double, and Susan will undoubtedly order her's protein style.  As we are so often reminded, life sometimes is simply unfair. 

A Day Harvesting Potatoes!

A graduate student we met here at Handong invited the Chinns and several other families to visit her parent's farm about 2 hours away in Hamyang City.  How could we resist?  Susan had been so disappointed when she learned that rice was no longer planted by hand (an experience she wanted the kids to have.)  Here was an opportunity to have the kids help with an actual harvest of potatoes.

Driving to the farm reminded me of family vacations traveling up to the Eastern Sierras in California.  Susan and I would chuckle as we see Korean families cooking traditional Korean food picnic style at the California roadway rest stops.   On our trip to the farm, we stopped at a Korean rest stop to picnic on peanut butter and salami sandwiches (that's peanut butter sandwiches and salami sandwiches instead of the two ingredients combined).  How odd a bunch of Americans must have looked to the Koreans at the rest stop as we lunched on our rather odd sandwiches in Korea?

We always see farms along the roadways as we travel through Korea.  To get to visit a farm was something we'd hoped for since our arrival.  This visit to a farm far exceeded our already high expectations.  The farm house was simple but beautiful and, in typical Korean fashion, lacked the clutter and the large furniture of Western houses.  Tables were folded out to make a long dining table where most everyone sat on the floor to eat a succession of homemade Korean dishes - many of which were grown on the farm.  Not being able to fold my legs on the floor, I opted for a chair.  The food was delicious and Susan was in heaven.  Highlights included both summer and winter Kimchi, scallion and calamari pancakes, cold black soybean noodle soup, and bibimbap (a mixture of vegetables, rice and hot pepper paste) followed by the traditional Korean fruit plate (dried persimmons and fresh apples).

With our bellies full, it was off to the orchard to see the apple orchard planted about 6 months ago.  Fields and groves in Korea are almost always planted on tiered plots of land carved into the hillsides.  While admiring the intricately planted rows of apple trees, I couldn't help but let my eyes roam to the beautiful sight of the surrounding tiered green fields of rice and other vegetables at the base of the heavily forested hills peaked with mist and the occasional roll of distant thunder.  One of our friends remarked that it reminded him of his travels in Switzerland.

From the orchard we headed off to the potato field for harvesting.  The kids (and Susan) all crowded into the bed of the farm truck (a sight you will never see in California though I remember it well from my childhood) for a trip down the road through a small village with narrow streets to the potato field.  Most of the potatoes had already been harvested, but the farmer had obligingly left a few rows for our ten or so kids to harvest.  We all took off our shoes and socks to enter the field with the kids leaping around in excitement.  The farmer cut off the tops of the potato plants leaving the kids to dig through the mounds of dirt for the hidden potatoes.  I don't think I've ever seen Robert happier.  Instead of mom nagging him to keep clean, he was free to immerse himself in the dirt.  Soon he was using his shirt as a sack to load potatoes up for the trip to the waiting boxes.  In moments the adults were pulled into the fun of digging with our hands through the dirt to scoop up the bountiful harvest.  The dirt was so inviting that Mary and Robert succumbed to the urge to lay down in the dirt to make dirt angels (the counterpart to snow angels in freshly fallen snow).  Susan compared the whole process to an Easter egg hunt.

After loading the boxes into the truck we headed back to the farmhouse for another meal of boiled freshly harvested potatoes with still another dessert of cold Korean watermelon.  What a wonderful day with such gracious hosts.  We brought back some of the spoils of our labor, but mostly we brought home wonderful memories that will last a lifetime thanks to this gracious farming family.  Below are some pictures of our day.

A rice paddy near our home.  They no longer plant the rice by hand.  It takes hours now instead of days.

Amazing homemade food by our hosts.  Everything was grown there on site and made fresh for us. 

 Acorn jelly, scallion/calamari pancakes, and other delicious side dishes.

Walking up to the apple orchard. 

Rows and rows of apples.  

All the kids love their Uncle Fred and Aunt Reneea!

 Hmmmm.  I guess this is how Mary puts on her sunscreen.

The pictures do not capture the beauty of this place.  Surrounded by mountains on all sides with breathtaking beauty everywhere you look!  I think I could live here!!!

Hardworking harmonies (older women) tending to their farm.

 S was delighted to find a baby potato.

 G on the other hand, dug up a giant potato.

 On the back of the truck, returning from harvesting the potatoes.  That face says it all.  Successful day. 

Steamed freshly harvested potatoes.  I never realized how sweet potatoes can be until now . . . Wow!  They were tasty.  

Chinn Family To Stay In Korea.

In the end, it wasn't a difficult decision.  When the Chinn family moved to Pohang Korea in August 2012, it was for one year during which Ken would serve as a visiting professor at Handong International Law School (HILS) and also serve as Trinity Law School's representative in growing a relationship between the two universities.  Ken's view was that this would be a healthy adventure for the family.  Susan was ecstatic about the opportunity for the kids and Ken to learn about the Korean side of our family heritage.  The kids saw it as a long vacation and adventure with the promise of returning home after a year to their friends and  the only home they have ever known in Orange County.

Second thoughts about the adventure arose immediately upon our arrival.  Everything seemed so foreign and we had hit a heat wave at the end of the monsoon season with no air conditioning in our apartment.  Ken's first experience eating a Korean style burger was an even bigger disappointment.  The flavors were all wrong and he could hardly finish it.  Clearly this adventure was off on the wrong foot.

Thankfully we got a couple of fans to help cool things off and the monsoon season soon moved into a beautiful Fall.  The teaching experiences were wonderful and the other law school professors soon became fast friends.  Susan and the kids were also quickly making lots of new friends.  We home schooled the kids who discovered they could be done with their lessons by noon if they worked hard in the morning.  Afternoons were spent roaming the campus and adjacent woods in search of adventures with their new friends.  We started to become familiar with the markets and found a Costco about an hour away in Daegu to purchase American familiar food items.  We were back in positive adventure mode as we explored Korea and its rich cultural heritage.  The kids starting asking questions like, "Do we have to go back to California?"  

Susan was clearly open to extending our stay and, surprisingly, I found my heart to be changing as well.  There is something very vibrant about living on a university campus with just a 5 minute walk to my office.  We could let the kids roam all day without a concern for their safety, knowing that they would return home by dinner time.  It reminded Ken of his youth and is an experience that has largely disappeared from life in big cities in the U.S.  Then there were the opportunities to minister.  Older people are looked up to with respect in the Korean culture.  We started having students regularly into our home for meals from Ken's classes and our church home here on campus.  You could feel the needs they had as they were far away from their homes and families.  We felt our family rapidly expanding.  Then there was the opportunity for our whole family to travel to Cambodia, Thailand and Laos over the Christmas break.  We have had many missionary experiences at our home in Downtown Anaheim as we ministered to the poor in our neighborhood, but this was different.  In Southeast Asia we saw poverty beyond anything we had ever seen or experienced.  In spite of the poverty the people were joyful and welcomed our presence.  We saw first hand the wonderful work done by missionaries and NGOs with such  a heart to serve.  What a privilege we had to learn from them and serve along side them during our travels.  The desire to remain and serve God in Asia pulled even stronger on our hearts.

But what about Trinity that so generously sponsored our trip to Korea.  How could we not return at the end of the year?  I wrote Dean Myron Steeves and shared the pull we were feeling.  He could not have been more encouraging.  He had traveled over to HILS in December 2011 and experienced the special environment here, and thought at the time he suggested our family travel to Korea for a year, that there was the possibility we would want to stay.  He recognized the special call and heart we were feeling towards staying in  Korea and was supportive of our decision to remain.

How long we remain in Korea is an open question.  We have committed to stay another 2 1/2 years.  Trinity has kept the door open for the possibility of Ken returning to Trinity as a visiting professor at the end of that commitment.  We are keeping our home in Anaheim, at least for the time being.  We miss our family and friends and home church in California.  Thankfully we are returning to California at the end of July for a visit.  All this has been a real step of faith and well outside Ken's normal comfort zone.  It is exciting to be following the Lord and depending on Him in these decisions.  We covet your prayers and hope some of you will come to visit us here in Korea - "The Land of the Morning Calm".

Ken and Susan Chinn

California Beach in Korea.

We've not celebrated birthdays as well as we hoped this year in Korea with traveling and a pretty full schedule.  Yesterday we tried to catch up a bit by celebrating Daniel, Mary and Robert's birthdays with a trip to California Beach - a water park in Gyeongju, a historical resort area about an hour's drive from where we live in Pohang.  Water parks have been a favorite with the kids since we visited Schlitterbahn in Texas back in 2011 during Dad's magnificent family adventure road trip around the US.  California Beach is aptly named though it is in Korea.  The park brought all sorts of memories back of the beaches in Southern California with a constant stream of American music piped in.  We were the only non Koreans I saw in the entire park which was surprisingly busy despite it being just the beginning of the summer season with schools still in session.  Susan will post a few pictures to give you an idea.  The kids all gave it a thumbs up and rated it on a par with the water parks in the US.  Mary's favorite she called "lazy river" where you float on inner tubes around a long canal with occasional surges of surf to propel the tubes and add a bit of excitement.  They boys seemed to enjoy the surf beach and assortment of water cannons and dropping water tube rides.  Susan was delighted with "Palm Springs", a large jacuzzi like pool with lots of stations around the edge with jet streams of hot water to massage your body in seated, standing and reclining positions.   

I must admit that I felt a bit of pride in possessing a California driver's license in my pocket.  I was tempted to show it off to the Koreans walking by who had come to the park to catch a bit of the Southern California culture they obviously admire.  I sometimes notice this same reaction on campus when Korean university students learn that our family is from California.

There are a couple of cultural oddities you will find at California Beach that you would be unlikely to encounter at any other water park outside of Korea.  Most water features require the riders to wear a life jacket and all water activity required us to wear either a bathing cap or hat while in the water.  The PA system periodically would announce a reminder that you must shower off any sun screen or tanning lotion before entering the water.  Clearly hair and oily skin are not welcome in the water.  The reward was remarkably sparkling clear water throughout the park.  The other interesting difference from water parks in the US was the locker rooms.  They were nice and modern in every way.  It was striking to see the comfort level that Korean have with public nudity in the locker room showers and dressing area however.  This reminded me very much of locker rooms in the US some 50 years ago when I was growing up.  I suspect it is related to the extensive use of public (and quite ornate) bath houses here in Korea where they have separate areas for men and women to bath in large indoor pools and where bathing suits are, at best, optional.  It was a great day for all of us and we are already talking about the possibility of getting season passes to get us through the exceedingly hot and humid Korean summers!

 Fun at the "beach".

 Mary's favorite part - the Lazy River.

 The boys playing with their water cannon and guns.

Ken taking cover from the sun.