I am finally able to decipher most words, even though I don’t know what they mean. However, instead of focusing on how hard feeling illiterate is, I decided to focus on something that feels familiar to me about this country: Its eco-friendliness. I grew up in Finland where being eco-friendly has been a norm ever since I was a small child and I learned how to consider nature from my mother. Here are just a few examples.
Seeing how the land is used to grow vegetables all over this country and not just in big farms reminds me of my own back yard with apple trees, berry bushes and a large garden. Just like the little old grandmother I saw selling her produce on the sidewalk today, I used to get my spending money by selling our produce in the open markets. My backyard was what would today be called an organic farm- just like the farms in the demilitarized zone are famous for.
The hotel cappuccino in Seoul was also very eco-friendly. We were reminded to save water by the “mascot” telling us that he was counting every drop. We were encouraged to earn coins by not requesting new towels or sheets every day, using public transportation, not ordering food to be delivered in, and using reusable cups and many other ways to be eco-friendly. It became a daily game to me to see how many ideas I was able to use to earn the coins, even though I knew I would just donate them at the end of the stay. It all reminded me of how my mother collected rainwater to use in gardening, how she never wasted resources and had us use public transportation instead of our car. Seoul as a city came across as very clean and eco friendly.
Chunchon is the same way. It has eco-friendly free lunches at schools and CNUE campus is the most eco-friendly campus I have ever visited. Most buildings I see from my window have solar panels and recycling goes beyond the typical paper/plastic- including glass, combustibles, and food. Very little ends up in the typical thrash. My mother also composted and used combustibles as fuel to cook using our wood stove preferring it over our electric stove. We did not have hardly any trash that went to garbage taken away by the city.
It has been a pleasure to experience the eco-friendly aspect of Korean culture to remind me of my childhood home amongst all the differences I am experiencing with the language and food here. It has brought me back many happy memories of my mother who would have had her 102 birthday this week.
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