There is another important part of Chusok, drinking. Korea is a drinking culture. I met a professor in the faculty dining room the other day. He told me his wife has been studying in the US for the last 2 years (maybe a discrete way of saying they are separated). When I asked him what he does in his spare time he told me he drinks. He said it with a kind of pride, certainly not with any shame. There is no shame in getting drunk here. It�s a sociable thing to do. The drink of choice is rice liquor called soju that tastes like rubbing alcohol. It�s 35% alcohol so it does the job. Of course I had to try it since not drinking is considered rude and guess what? I discovered I really liked it. It burned going down and furthermore I felt pretty good afterwards. But the most amazing thing that I discovered was that after I had had 3 shots or so of soju I could really play my saxophone well. I�m not sure if I was playing better or I just was less critical of my playing, but one time I was drinking some soju in a bar with some people and I just happened to have my saxophone with me. It is common for Korean people to sing when they drink. So it was natural for me to play then, and I think it was the best I ever played. That was when I had the idea, why not play jazz on the streets in Korea? So if the weather was nice and I had nothing better to do on a Sunday, I started going downtown to the pedestrian shopping area and playing some street music. In keeping with local traditions though I brought some soju with me to help me play better.

Before Chusok, we heard horror stories of nightmare traffic jams and the impossibility of getting any seats on any kind of transportation. Usually it takes 1 � to 2 hours to drive to Seoul, but during Chusok it takes 8-10 hours. The message we got was, don�t try to travel anywhere, just stay at home. Most of the foreigners on campus had no family to go to, so that�s what we did. Everything else was closed. Almost all stores, restaurants, banks�nothing was open. The campus was eerily quiet. Besides a few foreigners there were some locals that were harvesting some of the food that grows on campus such as persimmons, chestnuts, and a strange smelling berry. So while Chusok was a big day for the locals, for the foreigners it was a kind of hell because nothing was open and we were stuck there doing nothing. To their great credit, the Koreans had some very nice programs on the Friday before the holiday, explaining the holiday and its meaning to us. Then on Saturday we were invited to partake in a traditional and popular Korean pastime, mountain climbing. We climbed the most popular mountain near Taejon, Bomunsan, 460 meters high. From there we had a good view of the city. Then we had a picnic where we got to sample some traditional activities. After Saturday we were on our own. Not many foreigners got invited to visit homes during the holidays as it was seen as a private family holiday.

On Monday the first day of the holiday I got bored so I went to check out one of the big department stores near my house that I had never been to. It is called Carrer4 and it is one of about 6 very large department stores in Taejon. Koreans love their department stores to be huge massive comprehensive centers for shopping. You can buy just about anything you can imagine there. I had been to some of the other stores, namely, the Galleria, Lotte, Wal-mart (different feeling than the Wal-marts back home. These Wal-marts are fancy), and E-mart. But I had never been to this particular store perhaps because it was just so close to my house. Upon arriving I was surprised because it was even more elegant than Wal-mart (that sounds funny doesn�t it?). Here there were many people whose job it was to bow as you came in and also some of the salespeople were wearing traditional Korean hanboks. They also had ramp escalators, a nice invention because you can take your shopping cart up and up to the top floor. Somehow they designed it so that even if you don�t hold onto your cart, it won�t roll down the ramp. But the best part about this particular super store is that the top 3 floors are devoted to golf. There is a driving range there. It looks strange sitting there on top of the building like some kind of fancy hunting hat. You can hit from any floor 5, 6, or 7. Each little station has a personal fan, and a mirror so you can watch your swing. The ball automatically comes up on the tee. If you chose to hit an iron you can carefully take your ball off the tee, then the tee dips underground for a moment and comes up with another ball, all ready to go. Walking around the store I thought about getting a boom box. This was to aid me in my little hobby, which as I said before was playing my saxophone on the streets. It was really fun to do because Koreans didn�t quite know what to make of it. There were 4 different kinds of listeners; those who ignored me, the largest group, those who were irritated by me, those who were completely freaked out by me, and those who actually liked what I was doing and thought it was so cool. The first group was no problem, they just ignored me and I also ignored them. The ones who disapproved sometimes presented difficulties. There seems to be a tradition in Korea whereby older men have the right to tell younger people what to do if they feel they are acting inappropriately in public. I have seen older men smack young teenagers in the head when they jump in front of a line at the subway station. The young teenagers accept the punishment as if it were coming from their parents or uncle. A few times an older man would come up to me and tell me to stop playing. When that happened I usually just pointed to my ears as if to say, �listen, it�s nice music�. If he listened for a minute he usually nodded and walked away. If he still disapproved, I just ignored him hoping he wasn�t an undercover policeman or that he wouldn�t call one. The last 2 groups were the fun ones. They often took time out to stop, listen, or take my picture. I felt like a minor celebrity. At times there might be 30 or 40 people standing listening and taking pictures. Of course it was best when the pretty woman wanted to take their picture with me. The Koreans are almost as bad as the Japanese when it comes to taking pictures. The difference however was that the Koreans take your picture with their cell phones and then later put it on a free web page that it seems everyone uses called Cyworld. Last time as I finished playing and couldn�t think of anything to say to the assembled people, then I had an idea for a little game I could play to entertain the locals and break the ice. I loved playing and when the people sometimes really listened to me playing, it was such a great feeling. A musical idea comes from somewhere, you play it, you see the feeling reflected in faces of the people who are listening, and that energy comes back at you but more intensely.

My problem was what to do when the music stopped. I can�t really talk to them in Korean and I don�t want to play the ugly American and expect them to speak English to me, so I just sit there and smile and wave like an idiot. Then it hit me, why not take their picture back. Fight fire with fire. It is so nonverbal. So next time when I stopped playing, rather than try to say something stupid in Korean, or admit that I couldn�t speak Korean and say something in English, I would just start to take the picture of someone who was taking my picture. Then as a joke I would find someone else in the crowd who would take both of our pictures. Then I would try to keep adding to it until everyone and their sister was in the picture. It would be like those jugglers who try to keep many plates spinning at the same time. My fantasy was to get hundreds of people posing for the picture. At the end I would give everyone an Internet address where they could look at the picture. That was my idea. My tiny little 2 inch speakers that I had brought with me from the US were proving to be totally inadequate for playing music on the streets. Partly out of boredom and partly due to a moment of temporary insanity, I ended up buying the most expensive biggest boom box I could find at Carrer4. It cost about $ 150 after taxes. After my splurge on Monday, I felt that it was imperative that I try out my new sound system on the streets. Unfortunately, the main part of Taejon is very far from my school, about 40 minutes on the bus. It was no use going there on Chusok, everybody would be with their families on that day. Anyway, the weather was terrible on Chusok. The sky was filled with clouds and there was not chance of seeing the famous harvest moon, said by many to be the largest full moon of the year.

I woke up anxious on Wednesday and was happy to see that it was a beautiful day. It was the last day of the vacation and I figured that everyone would be downtown strutting around. The only problem was the bus. A shame to be cooped up in a smelly lurching bus on perhaps the nicest day of the year. Then I had a great idea. Why not ride my bike down to Eun Hang Dong? Sure it was a long way but it was just along the river and I guessed I could do it almost as fast as the bus, maybe faster if you include waiting for the bus. There was only one hitch, carrying my new monster boom box on a bike would be difficult. I had a hunch. I took out the boom box and tried to fit it into my backpack. As luck would have it, it just fit. It was heavy and I�m sure I looked funny, like I was carrying a microwave oven in my bag, but it worked. There was no room for anything else in there, so I filled my other pockets with other essentials like map, compass, pocket dictionary, and oh yes a bottle of soju to get me into the spirit of things. I thought about my wallet and decided I wouldn�t really need it. With my camera around my neck and saxophone slung over my shoulder I headed off on my big excursion. I�m sure I was a strange sight. I set out optimistically at 12 noon, thinking I could make it downtown by one and have at least 3 hours of playing in the streets and watching the people go by.

It was a beautiful day, a perfect day. As I pulled out of the north gate of my university, I saw the 185 bus to downtown coming down the street. I thought for a second about hurrying up, parking my bike and trying to jump on the bus, then dismissed the thought. I had no regrets as I watched it pulled away and as I took the trail down to the river. The sun was warm and there was a gentle breeze. Riding by the river was pleasant and I saw many people enjoying the beautiful weather with picnics, walking, skating, and just sitting. It wasn�t too hard to go down to the station. There was a bike trail almost all the way down there. I stayed on the east side of the river and didn�t have to worry about the fork in the river when it came up, in fact I didn�t even notice it. People gauge distances by the bridges over the river. I went under 3, 4, 5, 6 bridges and then I had to cross over to the other side to get to the side I wanted to be on. It took me 45 minutes to make it to the spot where I wanted. The last time I had come it had taken me 40 minutes on the smelly, shaking bus with the irritating bus driver who kept banging on the brakes every 10 seconds with no consideration for the passengers. I figured I was well ahead of the game.

The last bridge I had to go under was actually more like a tunnel. It was a little scary and dark in there. Some water drained into there from a big concrete pipe like a waterfall, so it was actually quite wet. I didn�t let it bother me. I slowly and carefully rode the 100 meters or so through the dark wet tunnel to the end and parked my bike. I figured here was a good place to drink my soju. I didn�t know what the law was about drinking in public so I started on my 3 medicinal shots here under the safety of the darkness. I took out the bottle and opened it up. By this time my eyes were adjusting to the dark a little. As I took my first burning taste I looked around and thought I saw a dim figure lying about 20 meters further in under the bridge. My reflection on the wet ground melted into his like a long tunnel. It looked like an old man in a loin cloth laying on some sheets or cardboard. He was up on high ground and the water around him glistened and further under the bridge the sound of splashing water floated up to me. As looked at him and tried to discern a face suddenly he rose up, looked right at me, and without hesitation started moving towards me as if pulled by some invisible force. Could he have smelled the soju? It startled me so much that I dropped the bottle. It fell on the concrete ground and smashed but somehow ended up standing straight. The man was coming closer about 10 meters away now. I bent over and picked up the jagged bottle and saw that there was still a little liquor in it. If I needed to, I could use it as a weapon, but at the moment I was more concerned about the soju that hadn�t spilled out. I swung around and started to trot out from under the bridge, carrying all my possessions on my back and the broken bottle in my hand. As soon as I had cleared the bridge and then some I turned back and saw the old man, phantom-like stop in the space between light and dark and hover there looking out. I turned around and kept walking, looking sadly at the bottle in my hand. There in the bottom was about 1 shot worth of soju, not nearly enough to get me into the head space I had hoped to be in. I cursed my bad luck. Damn. All that effort for nothing. I knew I couldn�t play well if I was straight. I had left my money at home so I couldn�t buy more. Forlornly I decided to try to make the best of a bad situation. Very carefully I lifted the jagged bottle and drank the remaining shot and threw the bottle away. As I walked to the pedestrian area, I assessed my mental state. I could feel a little of the soju acting on me, but not nearly enough. I decided to try to play anyway for about 30 minutes before turning back, a wasted day.

I found a good spot on the mall that wasn�t too saturated by sound. It seemed like every shopkeeper had a sound system and had to blast the music, so overall there was a cacophony of faded sounds boomeranging around. I found a bench that was kind of in an acoustically dead area. I put the boom box behind me and sat on the bench and took out my horn. The other young Koreans around me didn�t seem to mind what I was doing, in fact they acted like I was invisible. With great anticipation I turned on the box. Would it work? Would it be loud enough? I turned it on. With volume at the maximum 25, I was able to create a little space around me that was my sound, nobody else�s. I took out my horn and started to play �All of Me�. It�s a happy song, one that I know so well that I don�t even have to think about it. I can just play it. As I started blowing I noticed something strange. It felt great. I felt like I was playing from my heart, not my head. As I played it was like I was spreading myself, my true self out into the air, into the ether and as I did my heart, the essential me was also being spread out into that space. The effect was immediate, faster than light. The energy waves that were emanating from the music penetrated deep into people, sidestepping their personalities and going directly inside. Some people stopped to listen. Soon there was a small crowd. Some people looked like they were moved. They were smiling, entranced. Finally when the song from the boom box was over there was a big cheer from the people. I looked up at them, smiling. I was surprised. I guess I didn�t need 3 shots of soju after all. Maybe just 1 shot would do it. I looked at the people and tried to think of something to say. They liked my music, they liked my music, but did they like me? �Hi. Chonun Frank Ieyo. Chonun miguk saram ieyo. Hi my name is Frank. I�m an American.� The light that was in their eyes was draining quickly. I was losing them. Then I remembered my plan. �sajin� (photo) I yelled out just as some of the people started to back away. �Come on everyone you listened. Now you have to do something for me,� and I plunged into the middle of the small crowd. People shrank back. �Who is this strange man and what does he want?� I just kept coming. Then they got the idea. They relaxed and smiled and gathered round. It was such a common thing to take a picture here that it seemed completely natural and it was a nice way of celebrating the moment. Then some of the people started to talk to me and we had a nice conversation for a few minutes. Then it was over. It felt complete. People walked away. I sat down and played another song and got a new crowd and took another picture.

I went well past my � hour goal. I played for 4 hours, until my lip was sore and the batteries wore out. When it was getting dark I packed up and started on my way home. Hmmmm�.it all seemed too much like a lesson from the hand of God or something like that. Did God take time out from his busy schedule to make me drop my bottle of soju just so that I would only have 1 drink and not 3? It seemed too weird but in fact that was the lesson that I learned on Chusok. I didn�t need to be drunk, just a little relaxed to play well.

I walked back to the river hoping that my bike would still be there and that the strange floating man wouldn�t be. As luck would have it, it was there and he wasn�t. I started my long ride home, tired but happy with my day of music and new friends. I road along the river. It was dark now but the moon was almost full (day after Chusok). I stayed on the west side of the river and rode and rode for what seemed a long time. On the river many people were enjoying the last day of their vacation. In many places there were little plastic shelters set up with restaurants inside. They were selling Korean marinated beef (pulgogi) and dok (rice cakes in a hot peppery sauce). I rode past many places and then there came a time when the buildings became fewer and fewer. I remembered the compass around my neck. I glanced at it. What? I was going south? I should be going North. What was going on? I stopped and looked at the map. How could I possibly be going south? I stopped and asked a young couple who was roller skating. �Kaist odi kayo? Where is Kaist? I am a Kaist teacher and I am lost and I want to go home. Can you help me?� They looked at each other confused. He teaches at Kaist but he is so lost. How is it possible? Kaist people are supposed to be smart. They looked at my compass and then at each other and smiled. �It�s very far.� they said in English. I pulled out my map and then things became clear. I had followed the west bank of the river and had not noticed when the river gradually curved and veered off from the main branch. Instead of being in the north west part of town I was in the south west side of the city. I was further away than when I had started over an hour ago downtown. The nice couple patiently gave me directions. �Go past 8 bridges and then cross the river and then keep going. After a while you will come to Expo Park and then Kaist. They took my picture, perhaps so they could remember the day a Kaist teacher stopped them because he was lost. I thanked them and then started on my long way back home.

It was already 9 pm. I had a long way to go. Luckily it was a nice night. My back and butt were getting tired but I had no choice. I just kept riding and riding. After the 8th bridge I crossed over and then after checking my compass kept going in a northerly direction. Finally an hour and a half later at 10:30 I stopped near Expo Park to rest. There was a large asphalt area that looked like a parking lot but there were no cars, only hundreds of roller skaters and bicyclists riding around enjoying the nice evening. I say down exhausted and had what the Koreans call oden. It�s a kind of fish snack made from ground up fish and then molded into rectangular pieces and then boiled. Its served on long wooden sticks and dipped in soy sauce. It costs about 80 cents for 4 sticks, enough for a good snack. Some skaters came up and asked me what was in the box. I couldn�t resist playing them one more song and playing with their kids. After a while I went on my way for the last short leg home. I got home exhausted and went in and took a hot bath. Tomorrow was Thursday, no longer a holiday. Thank God.




All my stories are true, and some of them are actual.-Mort Sahl



Chusok pictures