Autumn colours

Daegu, ,
All of this is still not enough, however, to detract from the glorious autumn colours that have finally set the city in a beautiful blush of reds and yellows and oranges. Yesterday, I went downtown to one of my favourite parks (Gukchae Bosang Park) to see the trees in their autumn glory. I took the bus and then the subway. In the first few months here, I didn’t notice the distance much. Because it was all different, everything felts as though it was simultaneously far away and close by. I’m starting to get more of a sense of distances and how long it actually takes to get from place to place. I’ve lived in cities before and should be used to it by now but the interludes spent in small towns have still always felt more like home, so I still find the time spent travelling frustrating. One of the reasons I prefer buses to subways is that there is something to look at while you’re travelling. They do take longer, however, so it’s always a toss-up of speed versus views. Taking the same bus-route every day also takes away some of the thrill of the views. I now know that it takes at least half an hour for me to get from my area to downtown.
When I reached downtown yesterday, I wandered up the usual road towards the park. One of the things I always find fascinating is how so many people can walk around a city and not notice things. I am always so aware of the places I’m walking past. On this particular road, which I walk down fairly regularly these days, I always notice the new wedding dresses displayed in the windows of the multitude of wedding shops. Sometimes there are pretty dresses but most of them are startlingly over the top. Perhaps it’s just that the ones they display in the windows are their most elaborate but they tend to be rather overloaded with beads and lace and sparkling crystals. I always find myself wondering how they’d actually look on a real, live Korean bride. I’m not one of those women who spends all her time thinking about weddings, but I do love how pretty brides so often look in their wedding finery. I have a feeling that these dresses would not be exactly what I think of as stunningly beautiful. Just another confirmation, I suppose, that concepts of beauty are culturally defined.
The natural beauty of trees in autumn I think of as universal but perhaps that also has culturally contextual meanings for other people. For me, the colours are stunning. I’ve watched many autumns in my life. I haven’t generally lived in places with quite this many trees that lose their leaves in winter, however. Even in Johannesburg, which proports to be the world’s largest man-made forests, the trees don’t all change at the same time. I also don’t remember them being quite as many spectacularly different colours. The trees and bushes in the park seemed each to have chosen a different shade of red or orange or yellow – from pale green-yellow to bright, bright orange and deep, rusty red. Like girls dressed for a dance, each in her own beautiful colour and style. One of the things that makes it particularly beautiful is the way these different colours are scattered – so that you almost never see two trees side-by-side with the same autumn foliage. A row of trees will be a blaze of red, then green, then orange, then yellow.
As I walked through the park taking picture after picture to try and catch the pretty colours, I heard a bell ringing. I noticed this little bell the last time I was here but didn’t pay all that much attention. Right near the Sotdae, there is a bell that rings when the wind blows through the park. I’m not sure the exact significance of the bell is, but knowing that the Sotdae are traditionally guardians of an area and that bells or wind-chimes often have the same purpose, I wondered if it was linked. It was a beautiful round sound carried on the wind, which was gusting around and about the park yesterday, carrying colourful leaves into corners and across the grass. The bell and the Sotdae stood stark against the deep, blue, cold sky and the flaming colours of the trees.
On the other side of the park, there is a paved area next to the great bell, an area that is used by teenagers for roller-blading and skateboarding and BMX-ing (there is a ramp and everything). This open area is at the corner edge of the park, where it meets the intersection of two large roads. On the park-side stands the great-bell in it’s Joseon-style structure on the edge of grassy areas, with various paths leading through the grass and trees. On the other side of the open area, trees stand along two sides of the triangle, dividing the park from the road. Next two these trees are pots of yellow and red and purple flowers (including huge, bright marigolds). It was an explosion of warm colours and rare sunshine on a chilly autumn day. I tried to take pictures of it all but I don’t think I managed to capture it.
After the glorious colours of the park (and pavements as those trees slowly change their green for oranges and reds, too), I wandered through the downtown area. I don’t spend much time downtown during the day but sometimes it’s good to walk around. I always think of downtown as primarily a night-life-entertainment area so it’s sometimes easy to forget that it is actually a major shopping area too. In the evenings, although some shops are open, the major features of pubs and clubs and restaurants. During the day, the shops spill onto the streets, with displays of shoes and racks of clothes on sale and little stalls selling sunglasses and watches and jewellery. People wander along and pop into shops, looking at things and trying to find good deals. I walked around and looked at things. One of the things I was looking for was a pair of gloves because the weather really is getting colder and I am going to need them fairly soon. I didn’t manage to find any gloves but I did stop outside a tiny shop selling scarves. They didn’t appear to be selling anything but scarves, which is a little odd, but they had a wide range of beautiful, thick, warm scarves in all the colours you can imagine. I found myself struggling to pick just one from the lovely selection of warmth and prettiness. Eventually, I settled on a caramel-coloured woollen scarf – a wide scarf that is long enough to keep me properly warm this winter.
And then it was time to go to work so I walked back to the subway station and caught the next train back to Manchon and an evening of teaching.

Everyone who moves to a new place goes through different stages in the process of adjusting. Even though this move is temporary (probably only 1 year) it’s permanent enough to make it a move rather than just travel. This means that I, like everyone else, will be subject to the various effects and adjustment stages of immigration. At the moment, and which I’m told is completely normal, I’m far from enamoured with my current home-city. I’m fully aware that it’s all part of the process, but that doesn’t stop it making me moody and irritable. It doesn’t help, either, that it’s autumn and already cold enough for me to be shivering in my limited winter wardrobe. And that I have the beginnings of a cold.

All of this is still not enough, however, to detract from the glorious autumn colours that have finally set the city alight in a beautiful blush of reds and yellows and oranges. Yesterday, I went downtown to one of my favourite parks (Gukchae Bosang Park) to see the trees in their autumn glory. I took the bus and then the subway. In the first few months here, I didn’t notice the distance much. Because it was all different and strange, everything felts as though it was simultaneously far away and close by. I’m starting to get more of a sense of distances and how long it actually takes to get from place to place. I’ve lived in cities before and should be used to it by now but the interludes spent in small towns have always felt more like home, so I still find the time spent travelling a little frustrating. One of the reasons I prefer buses to subways is that there is something to look at while you’re travelling. They do take longer, however, so it’s always a toss-up between speed and views. Taking the same bus-route every day also takes away some of the thrill of the views. I now know that it takes at least half an hour for me to get from my area to downtown by bus and subway or longer just by bus.

When I reached downtown yesterday, I wandered up the usual road towards the park. One of the things I always find fascinating is how so many people in the world can walk along and not notice things around them. I am always so aware of the places I’m walking past. On this particular road, which I walk down fairly regularly these days, I always notice the new wedding dresses displayed in the windows of the multitude of wedding shops. Sometimes there are pretty dresses but most of them are startlingly over the top. Perhaps it’s just that the ones they display in the windows are their most elaborate but they tend to be rather large, full dresses, overloaded with beads and lace and sparkling crystals. I always find myself wondering how they’d actually look on real, live Korean brides. I’m not one of those women who spends all her time thinking about weddings, but I do love how pretty brides can look in their wedding finery. I have a feeling that these dresses would not be exactly what I think of as stunningly beautiful. Just another confirmation, I suppose, that concepts of beauty are culturally defined.

The natural beauty of trees in autumn I think of as universal but perhaps that also has cultural context for other people. For me, the colours are stunning. I’ve watched many autumns in my life. I haven’t generally lived in places with quite this many trees that lose their leaves in winter, however. Even in Johannesburg, which proports to be the world’s largest man-made forests, the trees don’t all change at the same time. I also don’t remember them being quite as many spectacularly different colours. The trees and bushes in the park seemed each to have chosen a different shade of red or orange or yellow – from pale green-yellow to bright, bright orange and deep, rusty red. Like girls dressed for a matric dance, each in her own beautiful colour and style. One of the things that makes it particularly beautiful here is the way these different colours are scattered – so that you almost never see two trees side-by-side with the same autumn foliage. A row of trees will be a blaze of red, then green, then orange, then yellow.

As I walked through the park taking picture after picture to try and catch the pretty colours, I heard a bell ringing. I noticed the sound the last time I was here but didn’t pay all that much attention. Right near the Sotdae, there is a bell that rings when the wind blows through the park. I’m not sure the exact significance of the bell is, but knowing that the Sotdae are traditionally guardians of an area and that bells or wind-chimes often have the same purpose, I wondered if it is linked. This bell rang with a beautiful round sound carried on the wind, which was gusting around and about the park yesterday, carrying colourful leaves into corners and across the grass. The bell and the Sotdae stood stark against the deep, blue, cold sky and the flaming colours of the trees.

On the other side of the park, there is a paved area next to the great bell, an area that is used by teenagers for roller-blading and skateboarding and BMX-ing (there is a ramp and everything). This open area is at the corner edge of the park, where it meets the intersection of two large roads. On the park-side stands the great-bell in it’s Joseon-style structure on the edge of  trees and grassy areas, with various paths leading through the trees. On the other side of the open area, trees stand along two sides of the triangle, dividing the park from the road. Next to these trees are pots of yellow and red and purple flowers (including huge, bright marigolds). It was an explosion of warm colours and rare sunshine on a chilly autumn day. I tried to take pictures of it all but I don’t think I managed to capture it.

After the glorious colours of the park (and pavements as those trees slowly change their green for oranges and reds, too), I wandered through the downtown area. I don’t spend much time downtown during the day so I always think of it as primarily a night-life-entertainment area. It’s easy to forget that it is actually a major shopping area too. In the evenings, although some shops are open, the major features of pubs and clubs and restaurants – complete with neon lights, loud music and bubbles (yes, one of the places has a bubble-machine that floats masses of bubbled down into the crowded streets). During the day, the shops spill onto the sidewalks and streets, with displays of shoes and racks of clothes and little stalls selling sunglasses and watches and jewellery. People wander along and pop into shops, looking at curiosities and trying to find good deals. I walked around and looked at things for a while. One of the things I was looking for was a pair of gloves because the weather really is getting colder and I am going to need them fairly soon. I didn’t manage to find any gloves but I did stop outside a tiny shop selling scarves. They didn’t appear to be selling anything but scarves, which is a little odd, but they had a wide range of beautiful, thick, warm scarves in all the colours you can imagine. I found myself struggling to pick just one from the lovely selection of warmth and prettiness. Eventually, I settled on a caramel-coloured woollen scarf – a wide scarf that is also long enough to keep me properly warm this winter.

And then it was time to go to work so I walked back to the subway station and caught the next train back to Manchon and an evening of teaching.

One thought on “Autumn colours”

  1. Gloves! And a beanie, with the long woollen ears that you can tie under your chin. Do they do the over-the-top-cutesyness in clothing that they do in some parts of Japan, or is Korea generally better behaved?

    I loved the story – you write so well.

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