The Buddha's Birthday (May 24, 2007)

Today, Buddhists across Korea and all over Asia observe the birth of the Buddha, 2,551 years ago, which is why in the Buddhist calendar it is not the year 2007, but the year 2551. It is a national holiday so I have the day off. It just so happened that one day during one of my breaks at work, I popped outside and while exploring the neighborhood, turned a corner and stumbled upon a Buddhist temple, wooden and painted with blue and red flowers, welcoming worshipers as they step inside to honor the Buddha. My only experience with religion in Korea so far has been the experience of being ambushed by Jehovah's Witnesses at Seoul Station, equipped with their plasttic smiles and Watchtower magazines in hand and meeting people from the Church of Christ and being asked if I believe in God. I thought that today would be a great opportunity to see the Buddhist culture in action, a religion that does not attempt to prosyletize and force people to accept its set of beliefs as the absolute truth. I had been told that about 30 percent of Koreans are Buddhist, but I had yet to watch an actual Buddhist celebration until today.

I turned that corner again today and walked toward the temple to hear the muffled sounds of chanting blaring softly from a set of speakers inside the temple complex. As I walked into the parking lot, the first sight that greeted me was a throng of people, many of them elderly, waiting in a line ouside the temple entrance to prostrate themselves to the Buddha. There were tables set up on either side of the crowd. A woman at one of these tables was handing out seongpyeon (Korean rice cakes) and gave one to me with a smile on her tanned, wrinkled face, pleased at the sight of a foreigner attending a Buddhist celebration. I graciously accepted the cake, and continued my perusal of the temple grounds. There were people everywhere, small children, pre-teens, and teenagers alike, milling about. Most people were seated inside and outside two separate houses located near the temple, talking and eating bibimbap, kimchi, and watermelon in metal bowls with metal chopsticks which clanged and clinked, making a sort of discordant music. I wanted to be a part of it all, and just as I was deciding how to go about doing this a middle aged man asked me to sit with his wife and daughter. He asked me if I wanted bibimbap, the popular spicy rice and vegetable dish everyone was eating. I politely declined, as I had just eaten breakfast, but sat and accepted a couple slices of sweet, juicy watermelon. I wore a sundress that came above the knee and just after I sat down, a woman walked over and placed a light gray blanket over my legs, to encourage modesty in this holy place. The family didn't speak any English, and I speak very little Korean, so we just sat quietly and enjoyed each other's company.

After a few minutes of eating, I got up and walked around. At the table on the other side of the now dwindling crowd, were children getting their faces painted--pink and white and blue lotus flowers brightened their plump cheeks. Other children and adults were making lotus flowers out of hot pink and yellow hanjee, or Korean handmade paper. As I walked away from the table I noticed that there was a large inflated baby Buddha sitting on top of a pink lotus a few feet away from the temple entrance, and paper lanterns swung gently from the roof of the temple. I felt like I became part of the Korean culture today. When you are in a foreign country working eight hours a day, you miss out on opportunities to experience other aspects of the culture of the country you're living in. It is a gratifying experience to feel like you're part of it all, it is the number one reason why I love to travel so much--to feel connected to the world community.