Story Archives

South Korea Travel Stories

South Korea: Sirum Blues: A Brooklyn Monk Learns Traditional Korean Wrestling
- Story by Antonio Graceffo
- 8th Online Issue

The players meet in a small circular ring with a sand covered floor. They wear bicycle shorts with a satba, a thick strong belt wrapped around their waist and right thigh. The players start kneeling on the floor, facing one another. The right hand is gripping the satba tightly at the opponent’s waist; the left hand is wrapped in the satba under the opponent’s right thigh. When the referee gives the signal they stand up, left knee first, then the right. They must stand at exactly the same time and without the position changing or a restart is called and they have to go back down on their knees and do it again.

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Seoul, South Korea: My Two Korean Sojourns - Story by David J. Marcou
- 8th Online Issue

In the summer of 1984, after graduating the Missouri Journalism School, I was invited to work as chief copy editor for Yonhap News Agency’s International Desk in Seoul. I arrived that August and spent nine months there during my first Korean sojourn. I’d been inspired to go to Korea by my Korean friends at Mizzou and by my contact with the great British photojournalist Bert Hardy in 1981, when I photographed him for the National Portrait Gallery in London. Mr. Hardy and writing-partner James Cameron had covered the Korean War brilliantly for Britain’s ‘Picture Post’ Magazine.

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South Korea: Chicken Soup for the Sinus - Story by Naomi Arnold
- 6th Online Issue

It's winter in Korea, and the rich, hazy green of summer is a distant, luscious memory. Hayley and I shiver in our classrooms, our students wrapped up in bright, loud fluffy hats and jackets, their raucous energy only briefly dampened by the cold. As nine of them leap over chairs and tables in the tiny room, I sit stiffly, my knees burning from the useless fan heater. I wish my students would keel over and drop to the floor, frozen solid like a row of brightly coloured Popsicles. I croak a half-hearted "choyangeeay!" But it's futile, and the noise and screams continue. They're meant to be taking a test. I huddle into my heater and think darkly of the hours I wasted frolicking in the sun a few months ago.

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Seoul, South Korea: Elephant Training in the Hermit Kingdom - Story by John Regan
- 6th Online Issue

Sometimes, things that aren’t supposed to happen just do. My brush with the unexpected began in June of 1997 when the Army sent me to Korea for a one year tour. I’m now in the third year of that “one year” assignment and having the most remarkable tour of my career - training elephants instead of soldiers.

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Pusan, South Korea: "Slumming it" in Korea - Story by Anna Maria Espsäter
- 5th Online Issue

The truth is I didn’t know the first thing about South Korea. I’d had one of my mad impulses again and decided to jet off by ferry to the port city of Pusan, or Busan as it’s also known, with a friend of mine while on a two week trip around Japan. Thus we arrived with no information, no hotel booking, no map or even the slightest grasp of Korean. One day I will learn my lesson and simply buy a guidebook to every country surrounding the one I’m actually going to, as I’m always prone to these spur of the moment dashes. Still, arriving without a guidebook can be an adventure in itself and not always a bad idea.

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JeonJu, South Korea: Suction Cup Soup - Story by Kate Liptrot
- 2nd Online Issue

My dinner was distressed, so he tried to climb out of the pot. He barely fit anyway, perched upon a mound of seafood, the rest of which was thankfully already dead. Tentacles shot out in every direction and I squashed down the lid to keep him from making it on to the table.

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Culture Shock (1): South Korea "Kids will be kids" - Story by Jason Gaskell
- Premier Online Issue

The old man peered up at me and his leathery face cracked as he smiled and spoke. "You— You Handsome!" He had brownish-yellow stained teeth, gappy like the crenelated wall of an English castle; and his upper body drooped over what seemed like a forty-five degree angle from his waist. The Hunchback of Jisandong seemed like he'd never seen a foreigner before in his life; so I just smiled back and said, "kamsa-hamneeda" to thank him.

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