More Ginger Tea, Some Melon Pan and Bad Manners

1120 kg of ginger tea so far, to be precise. Made in seven days, but we're not finished yet. Mostly it's fun, but not on the days when I'm on a 18 hours duty. Luckily it happened only once, but three times I pulled a 14 hours working day. And I'm not using the first singular out of ego, it's just a fact that it's just me waking up in the middle of the night and walk to the next village to start cooking the ginger mixed with sugar in two cauldrons. I'm not complaining, I volunteered for it. It's well paid so I'm happy to do it. And there's always beer for me in the family factory where we make the tea.
Two weeks ago I tried to go to Japan, before the ginger madness started. Without making a reservation. Bad idea. I was sure that in this time of year almost nobody travels, but once in Busan I found out that there's nothing available for the next three days. Since it was late I went to the Blue Backpackers Hostel, just to find it had no vacancy. Luckily I'm a regular there so the owner let me sleep on the sofa in the common room. When I went for same late shopping I noticed some weird numbering on the houses in front of the hostel.

Yeah, the 29-6 and 8-7 are next door neighbors.
The next morning I went back home, with a memorable hangover. The ginger was already waiting.
For the next trip to Japan I had to be sure to make it in time, visa ending was approaching, so I asked a friend here to make a reservation. I wanted to try a different route so we booked a ferry to Daema do (Tsushima in Japanese). As things go I managed to be late for the ferry, with only 10 hours of visa time still available. The Camellia, my usual transport for Fukuoka was fully booked again, so the only chance was the jetfoil Beetle (Bitoru in Japanese). The fastest. The most expensive. The ticket was just 30.000 won cheaper than the royal suite on the Camellia. It was also 15.000 won more expensive than the plane ticket for Manila. But I was in Japan in less than three hours and - lo and behold! - at the immigration and the customs nobody asked dumb questions. They even didn't check my stinking socks. I only learnt that time is actually relative. So you go back to Korea tomorrow morning? asked the immigration officer. If so, then please write here two days of stay in Japan, not one. OK, I got this, for administrative purposes it can make sense. But deep in my heart I'm still a Korean hillbilly and 12 hours will NEVER EVER be considered two days in our village.
Just one night in Fukuoka... but too cold to join the homeless guys in the park near the port, like I did last summer. And I didn't even have my sleeping bag with me. Khaosan Fukuoka Hostel - no vacancy. So much for the time of year when nobody travels. The nearby International Hostel Fukuoka had a free bed. And - I couldn't believe it - smoking and drinking allowed in the common room! Yay!
You know, I've been to Japan eight times already. Many time just for a few hours, true, but all in all I accumulated a few months of life in Japan and I thought that I know something about Japanese food. Hell, I've been eating the most delicious miso soup for one month (not to mention other food for gods that Chika san made for us), cute little girls were almost chasing me with their home made onigiri, Okano san made some not really pickled pickles... and so on. But I never heard (or saw) about melon pan. Melon bread. Until I started watching anime. And I found out that melon pan is the favorite food of girls that come to Japan from other dimensions or galaxies, from the future or the realm of the dead. So I counted again all the remaining coins I had (Ramon, now I know why your leather jacket was always so heavy - the pockets were full of yen coins) and went to buy me dinner.

Melon pan and Sapporo stout beer. And later some umeshu.
I came back home with 34 yen and 200 won in my pocket. The ginger was waiting.
On Tuesday we were literally overloaded with ginger. It was everywhere. We couldn't peel and slice it fast enough so help was requested. To my great despair it was our village Yogi that came to help. He was worse than useless but that didn't bothered me too much. I'm slowly getting used to useless Koreans. The really bad point is that he's the one that is really compulsively obsessed with moving the dishes on the table when we eat. And when I wake up before 5 am, skip breakfast and stir ginger till lunchtime I'm not exactly in good mood when someone starts to move the kimchi I'm targeting. Yet this time I was shouting and cursing. He started moving the tables. Once, OK, I will survive. I moved my ass, too, to follow the food. Twice, OK, I will survive, but barely. I moved my ass, too, to follow the food. When I saw him grabbing the table for the third time... Not OK, you will not survive. You just fuckin' stop movin' the fuckin' table!  I shouted really loud. Way too loud since I was also a guest in the house of the Cho family, but I didn't give a shit. While everybody stopped eating in shock, Yogi looked at me with the kind of puppy-face that says "I haven't done anything bad". Ma va' a farti fottere, stronzo! Leave the table alone! I ate as fast as I could and ran back to my cauldrons.
We're off for the weekend. I took myself the luxury to sleep till 7 am. And my ginger was waiting for me on the field. Ah well... tomorrow I'll start making ginger candy.

Ginger Tea for a Cold Morning

Last night the temperature dropped to zero, according to the weather report. I don't have a thermometer to check it, but when in the middle of the night my bladder woke me up and made me run outside, I surely felt uneasy while the freezing air was grabbing for my balls. So, when I woke up few hours later, first thing I went to my field and took one plant of Zingiber officinale, commonly known as ginger. Traditionally ginger is used as a remedy for various illnesses, ranging from common colds, cough and flu, to dyspepsia, nausea and arthritis. Recent studies show that it may ease muscle pain and to treat nausea caused by seasickness, morning sickness and chemotherapy.
I use it because I like the taste. I used to make ginger tea with honey, but this time I choose to try it with the rice syrup that one of my neighbors made. It was a good choice. Homemade rice syrup, homegrown ginger and hot peppers (you may not put them in the tea if you don't like them). Unfortunately I had to buy lemons at the supermarket, a half-hour ride with bus (and yes, the nearest bus station is an hour walk from my home).

Cut the ginger roots (when you want to look smart you don't say roots but rhizome) in thin slices and put them in cold water. The amount? Your choice, depending how strong the taste you want. Boil them for good twenty minutes. Don't be afraid it's too long, here when we make ginger tea as preserve for sale, we cook it for 10 hours or more. If you're a fan of hot peppers, add them in the last minute of boiling. Before adding the lemon juice wait for a minute or two so it cools a little bit. And then rice syrup. Or honey. Or even sugar, in China they traditionally make it with brown sugar. Drink it as hot as you can. On the other hand, you can make a lot of tea and first drink it hot, then wait and when it's cold it makes a superb refreshing drink.
A tasty variation is to use orange juice instead of lemon. With a dash of cinnamon.
A new thing I learned is that you can use also the leaves, for tea making or as spice. They have the same taste as the roots, just way milder. I'll dry them and next time try a tea with a mixture of ginger and mint leaves.

Another tea that will be ready for cold days is Rosa canina - dogrose or witches' briar. I was really surprised that the folks here don't use it and I'm the only idiot that is picking the fruits. Why idiot? Because the thorns on the plant are the same size like on the European species, while the fruits are five times smaller, even smaller than a coffee bean.

 

추석, One Year Later

"Uncle Dag surely loves to drink a glass of beer, doesn't he?" 
"No, he prefers to have the bottle all for himself and he doesn't need the glass." 
Last week I was hired, together with little Guryun, for a day of work on the Poet's fields - the man is actually a poet, but he's a farmer, too. Guryun's duty was to pull the weeds on the radish fields, while I was prepairing some other fields for planting the garlic. During our first break Guryun ran to the Poet's house and brought us chestnuts, boiled sweet potatoes and a bottle of beer. That was the moment when the Poet asked Guryun: "Uncle Dag surely loves to drink a glass of beer, doesn't he?" 
And Guryun replied: "No, he prefers to have the bottle all for himself and he doesn't need the glass." 
As you see, my Korean improved a little, but only when I hear a sentence including my name and the word beer.
It's been quite a long time since my last post here. Actually nothing spacial happened. I had a party for my first anniversary here, lots of delicious food, beers and laugh.

And this is how my kitchen looked when everybody left.

And a strange coincidence happened again. The day after my previous food festival (as my neighbors call this dinner events), we had a typhoon roaring above our heads. And this time again. Maybe I'm some kind of a typhoon god or my dinners are cursed?

It was after this one that I was looking for my tomatoes and peppers in the surrounding woods.
And than came 추석, the Korean harvest festival, usually referred to as "Korean Thanksgiving Day". I came here last year for 추석, so, according to the lunar calendar, it was another anniversary. But, since 추석 is a mass exodus and everybody goes to visit their relatives (dead or alive), I stayed the only one in our village. King of the Mountain, as they call me at such times. To not be bored I busied myself pretty much and also consumed massive amounts of alcohol. I was still fighting my abnormal obsession with anime - I made is safely for eight full days, but today I had just enough of this crap. With a terrible hangover I realized that in this time I spent so much money on alcohol that with it I could buy me a plane ticket for the Phillippines. One way, of course. In another week it would be a return ticket. Now don't get me wrong, I have absolutely no intention of quitting my beer joy, just to reduce it  to a somewhat normal grade.
 I still want to take advantage of this beautiful autumn weather to take a stroll on the hill behind the house and relax like this, two days ago:

I said I was pretty busy during 추석. And also the boars took care of it. One night they attacked our shiitake mushroom plantation and made a horrible mess. The logs that ure used to grow the mushrooms were all scattered around, the mushrooms all trampled on the ground. Huh, I gues that this description makes it look like a smaller disaster, but all in all it wasn't that bad. It was a few logs, a small part of one plantation (we have two), but enough to make you angry. I was especially pissed off because the mushrooms weren't eaten but trampled. I picked what looked still usable, a full big box of them, and some ended up drying, others preserved in olive oil.

Even if the typhoon damaged my fields, here and there I can still pick a few tomatoes and make some sauce.
Next thing I did was dye some shirts. With clay. The allmighty Korean hwangto. It's really easy, I mixed the clay with little water, just enough to make a thick paste, and then dipped the shirts in it, making sure every square inch is well covered with the stuff, from both sides. Then I hanged them to dry for one day.

The next day I went with them to the stream neraby to wash them properly.

You may wonder why I did in the stream.. For one, it's easier. Second, I'm not the type to waste tap water if it can be helped. And third... the most important... this is how the downstream looked like. I really wouldn't like all this clay to clog the pipes.

The results? Like in the picture. For comparison I added a brand new white shirt, while the left one is the shirt that I dyed two months ago and wore practically every second or third day, so it has been washed at least twenty times, probably more.

For the next time I'm making kaki-shibu, I haven't learned the Korean word yet. It's a tannin dye made from unripe persimmons.

Bolaven And Tembin

Bolaven is a region in Laos, while Tembin means Libra in Japanese (てんびん座). I'm not yet interested in traveling to Laos and I still don't care about constelations, so I prefer to think about them as TC1215 and TC1214, respectively.
Tropical Cyclone 1215 was quite a powerful one, reportedly one of the strongest ever to hit the Ryukyu islands in Japan, so the alarms in Korea were really dramatical, the president in person issued a warning and perhaps saved a lot of lives. We were lucky, being few hundreds of kilometers from the eye, no real damage, no flying roofs (like it happened here during a winter storm), just damaged crops. We fixed or moved anything that could fly or be overturned and took care also about ourselves to not be swept away by the storm. I made again a gargantuan dinner with tons of spaghetti in homegrown salsa (made with homegrown tomatoes, onions, garlic, hot peppers, oregano and basil, olive oil and salt the only bought ingredients), oven-hot bread (actually it was ricecooker-hot), spicy potato croquettes, pickled eggplants, tomato kimchi, fresh tomatoes and Yong Ran brought fresh hot green peppers pickled in hot red peppers paste. We inreased our weight also with liters of Korean beer and Japanese umeshu.

Since we were so well prepared we went to sleep relaxed. Some of us too relaxed. I was the great moron (as usual) for I was the only one to forget to close the window. When around 4 AM the howling wind woke me up, half om my room was already looking like a small swimming pool.
It was only in the afternoon that I resolved myself to check the fields.

Not a single sorghum plant was spared. The tomatoes were all badly battered and some pepper plants decided to move somewhere in the woods. The ginger and peanuts were unaffected. Anyway there was nothing to do at the time because the storm hadn't calmed yet and we had winds with gusts of about 100km/h. The next day it took me a few hours to some repairs and try to salvage what it could be. All in all, we were lucky. Folks here told me later that years ago, when a typhoon passed very close, the wind uprooted so many trees they had firewood for two winters.
I read a heartbreaking story from Japan, where two boys were swept in the sea by the waves. The mother jumped in the sea to save them, she jumped to her death, while the boys were later saved, mostly unharmed.
In Korea, one woman died because the wind blew her from the roof. WTF was she doing on the roof? Saving her laundry? Surely she was not saving her children - in this case it would be on all newspapers fronts. Another woman was killed by a tile, blown from the church roof. As I always said, never trust the Church! To increase the death toll of the typhoon were the usual willing Chinese. Two Chinese fishboats sunk near Jeju island, probably thinking that the warning of the Korean authorities was just some imperialist propaganda.
And today I'm writing this in the midst of TC 1214, there was some heavy rain in the morning, wind almost none. Yet another day to spend indoors, watching anime.

The Tale Of One City

I'm loosing my grip on reality. It's not like I'm going insane (I never was sane in the first place), it's just that I don't really care what is happening to me anymore. I do care for the tomatoes and I'm still coking a lot, but it's just too hot to go to the village. It's two weeks since I came back from Japan and in all this time I went to the store only once to buy two beers. So instead of drinking I watch a lot of anime. I mean really a lot. One month ago my list of watched anime said 105 anime with 2560 episodes (equivalent to 45 days and 8hours of wasted time in my life), today the counter is at 135 anime with 2975 episodes (52 days 22 hours wasted). As it goes for everything I do I even watch anime with a sort of obsession. I want to know everything that is to know about them. I went so far to download an anime from 1945, Momotarō: Umi no Shinpei (Momotaro's Gods-Blessed Sea Warriors), the first Japanese feature length animated film. Technically can be compared to the present production, it lacks only colors and bigger eyes ("invented" in the 1960s by the mangaka Osamu Tezuka). It's a propaganda movie that features brave Japanese animals (soldiers of the Empire, of course) that are protecting Asia from the barbaric hordes of Allied soldiers. It ends with a victorious Japan and everyone lives happily after. I knew it's a propaganda movie so I wasn't pissed of by the bullshit it was serving. I just wanted to write something. Not about the Unit 731, the Comfort Women, cannibalism or other war crimes.
 It's a tale of one city, Nanking - 南京大屠殺.  
Warning: explicit graphic material.
If you ask Japanese revisionists, the tale never happened. Those who don't deny it are calling it Nanking Incident. Outside Japan is known as the Nanking Massacre or The Rape of Nanking. Historians still argue (they always argue) about the number of victims, but it's estimated to be between 200 000 and 300 000. More than in Hiroshima and Nagasaki together. They were not killed by pressing two buttons to release atomic bombs. It was a craftsman work, done by hand. The mighty Japanese swords used in contests who will behead more prisoners.

Maybe the Japanese steel wasn't that good since lots of civilians were burried alive.

As always, the worst came for the women. Because raping a woman is not enough, not if you're a proud Imperial soldier. After the rape you have to kill her, but not mercifully, you have to mutilate her. In most cases stabbing a long bamboo stick in her vagina.

And children? They were cut open so the Japanese soldiers could rape them.
It went on for six weeks, day after day, night after night.
Prince Asaka was commander of the Japanese forces but he never faced the Nanking War Crimes Tribunal - he was granted immunity by the General Douglas MacArthur. Hisao Tani was the only officer prosecuted for the Nanking massacre (and executed). General Yasuji Okamura was also convicted of war crimes, but was immediately protected by the personal order of Chiang Kai-shek, who retained him as a military adviser for the Kuomintang.
Which remindes me, the above mentioned Unit 731, which was a facility to research biological and chemical warfare... a facility to freely experiment on humans with incredible tortures... after war, again General Douglas MacArthur secretly granted immunity to the physicians of Unit 731 in exchange for providing America with their research on biological warfare. The members of Unit 731 and other experimental units were allowed to go free. Masami Kitaoka continued to do experiments on unwilling Japanese subjects from 1947 to 1956 while working for the National Institute of Health Sciences. He infected prisoners with rickettsia and mental health patients with typhus.
The same people that were so willing to drop atomic bombs on (mostly) civilian targets were very unwilling to prosecute the real criminals. Because they are all the same.
I hope the all-loving God is happy.

Baka Goes To Japan

I'm really looking for it. Troubles. It started in Busan. I'm so fucking clever that I don't want to listen to people's advices. When I bought the ferry ticket I just told the guy that I already know everything concerning schedules and so on and went drinking on the roof. Sure that boarding starts at 7.30PM I came (already drunk) at the gate at 7.40 to find the hall empty and the gate closed. 7.30 is the boarding closing time. Luck was on my side since the employees haven't left home yet and in a split second everyone, including customs officers, was back at their job. They also called the ship that an idiot has yet to board. Not to mention how embarrassing it was, the worst had to came. The duty free shop was already closed. No smokes, no alcohol. I mean the cheap ones. Will have to buy them at Japanese prices. Urgh. At least the ferry saved me some money - I bought smokes from a vending machine with duty free prices and without age verification. Drawback - it accepted only coins so I was buying lots of snacks from another vending machine that accepted bills and returned me coins. Which gave birth to another trouble. Since I had no more beer I opened the 1.8 litre bottle of soju and went to the smoking room where I woke up at 4 in the morning and after surprisingly little effort found my cabin and had two hours of decent sleep. Hangovered as hell I went through the Japanese immigration in a blink, just couldn't believe it, then got stuck at customs. Literally stuck. I have no other words for the woman working there so I'll call her a bitch. Because that is what she is. A mean skinny bitch. I do know what are the duties of customs officers. I was prepared to give up on my kimchi smuggling attempt. But she didn't give a shit about my kimchi, soju and other Korean food and drinks. No, she spotted the Japanese snacks. Fucking suspicious. How come you have Japanese snacks with you? Didn't you just arrive in Japan today? Well, my lady, it happens that the ferry is Japanese so they sell Japanese stuff on it. Really? Why they sell Japanese snacks on the ferry?
I was speechless. I looked her straight in the eyes, searching for any sign that she was making fun of me, that she was trying to piss me off, whatever, but no. She was on it for real. And I didn't know what to answer. I really don't know how to explain why on Japanese ships they sell Japanese snacks. So I stayed silent but she was not giving up. She really wanted an answer. She demanded it. I felt sort of like I was waiting for Godot and I told her that I suppose that a Japanese ship is loaded with snacks in Japan, not in Korea. Nice shot, she was happy with the answer. Next she wanted to know when I left Slovenia. One year ago, more or less. And where is the stamp in your passport that will prove it? Huh? What? I have not a single stamp from Slovenia in my passport, only Japanese, Korean and from Hong Kong! Saying that I fly from Italy would equal to another hour of idiotism with her so I went with the EU zone shit, no borders and the like. Lucky again. Why do you stay in Korea? Easy one, I practiced this lie a lot so it came naturally to say that I have a Korean girlfriend. And why do you go to Nagasaki? Easy again, I go to visit a friend. BANG. The bitch doesn't know the difference between a friend and a GIRLfriend. I saw her turning from her emotionless to an icicle. So you travel between them all the time? Hell no, you got it wrong, lady, it's not what you think, I have a MALE friend in Nagasaki and... Too late. She already decided that I'm a male pig, and a gaijin on top of that. And we repeated the routine. When did you leave Slovenia? When will you go back to Slovenia? What is your occupation? Do you have any brothers or sisters? Where do they live? Can I check again your bag? On and on and again. She didn't bother to check my reservation in Akari. No, she really jaust wanted to make my life miserable. And she was good at it for something like 20 minutes or more. She would probably go on for more, but it happened that in this time all the Cammelia passengers went through the customs on the other gate, I was the fucking last one, hostage of the bitch. She noticed it too and finally let me free.
Few hours later I was in Nagasaki, really hot, first stop was the liquor shop, next door to the hostel. Sixpack of Kirin, then yelling into the Akari reception, HELLO, THE DRUNKARD IS BACK. Joke wasted, nobody at the reception. But they did hear me, Tomoko and Kaz were in the kitchen. Kaz also wasted my sixpack joke, he welcomed me with cold beer from the fridge. Dag san, welcome back, we have many beers for you and the day after tomorrow we will have a party for you!
Tadaima.
More beer, soju, umeshu,  a visit to Kentaro's place and there I blacked out. Last thing I remember is me drinking beer at Kentaro's, next is somebody shaking me. I open my eyes and I see the street. Actually the first thing I saw were the streetcar rails. I was sleeping on them. And a police officer was waking me up. I have no clue where I was, but for sure I got lost after leaving Kentaro's bar. And at some point decided to take a nap in the middle of the street. Baka. The policemen were really nice. Their English was really poor, but they did their best and they actually gave me lift to the Akari in exchange to check my documents. They even apologized for bothering me with ID check. When they wished me oyasumi I bowed really deeply and fell on my face. It was 4 AM and it was a call for a beer on the Baka Bridge.

The Secret Garden, Unveiled

Tomorrow is time for my visa run. I was planning to spend two or three days in Nagasaki, but since I checked my passport without glasses and tried ferry ticket reservation in the last minute, I will have to spend eight days in Japan. Not that I worry about time, still have plenty of it. For the few days extra in Japan I have to cancel my winter time in warmer places. Yes, few days in Japan will cost me as much as the return ticket to and two months of  accommodation in the Philippines. Ah well. I'll do my best to have great time in Nagasaki, frequent visits to the neighbor, nights on the Baka Bridge...
Today I'm packing. Not that I have much to pack, but anyway. Early in the morning I was weeding my fields and picking the ripening tomatoes to dry them.

 The tomato plants don't look really impressive because I had to do a lot of cutting - after a week of ceaseless rain and high temperatures the plants started rotting and I had to remove all the lower branches.

The tomatoes are finally doing well, they started growing faster than the bugs can eat them. When the fruits started growing it was a complete mess, the damned bugs ate them all. The bastards *completely* destroyed the crops of rutabaga and broccoli. Ate them to the ground. The ginger, cucumbers, pumpkins, hot peppers, sorghum (S. bicolor) and sunflowers are doing fine. Common flowers, too.

 A month ago I was really pissed with the bugs. And it was starting to be really hot. And I always wanted to try something - forest gardening. The forest is just at the end of my field, only a stream between. Ideal.

 

 So I moved some plants in the forest, just to see what will happen. I called it my secret garden because I didn't want to be laughed at for my crazy ideas. Alas, not long after I had to disclose it... little Guryun, damn those curious children, just sniffed that something weird is happening. Don't ask how he did it, have no clue, but soon I heard rumors about me planting something in secrecy in the woods. Hell, no. Can you think about more than one plant species that I could be planting secretly?  Well, I didn't want for the folks here to think about THAT plant so I had to explain in details what the hell I'm doing there.
First of all, I'm cooling myself there. The plants are scattered along all the slope, but working in the shade is way more relaxing than doing it under the blazing sun. Second, I'm cooling my beer in the stream. Third, I'm resting - there are no weeds and almost no bugs there.
The secret garden starts just across the stream.

 

It's not only because of the bad picture, even in reality it's hard to notice it. To give you an idea I dotted the tomato plants with red and the sorghum with blue.

Tomato close-up.

Sorghum "field".

Only from today is possible to notice the tomato fruits. That's the drawback of a forest garden: plenty of shade to rest, not enough sun for the plants. Actually I should say "barely enough sun" - the plants are slower. And the fruits are smaller. But I'm in no hurry and I will have plenty of big fruits from the official field.

Beds prepared for the late summer rutabaga planting. I learned the trick when I was planting wild ginseng in the mountains of Gangwon do.

This was a post about idyllic natural life. Don't get too shocked if I'll be posting something from Nagasaki. It will most probably be from the red light district.