Hwang Sa, Jang Ma, Memi and Yul Tae Ya

Hwang Sa

I arrived in Korea nearing the start of spring. It’s a time people love here for the cherry blossom festivals and mild weather.

But it’s also the season of Hwang Sa – the yellow dust storm. On certain days the city will be completely blanketed in a hazy cloud of dust blowing east from China.

Koreans limit their time outside. They wear facemasks and shower off when they get home.

The major origin of Hwang Sa is the Kubuchi Desert in Mongolia. The cloud is then made more offensive as it picks up smog and pollution from Chinese cities to carry along with it.

Korea and China have started a Joint Tree Planting Program to halt desertification in Mongolia.

In July, Korea sent the contestants of the 2007 Miss Korea beauty pageant to plant trees in the desert – and of course, for the photo opportunity.

They looked cute. But I doubt anyone in Seoul is tossing out their facemask. Sure enough, it’ll be back again next year.

Jang Ma and Yul-tae-ya

Having survived Hwang Sa, we moved on into Jang Ma – the Monsoon Season, which apparently doesn’t know when to end. It’s nearly mid-August and it’s still pouring.

The news clips of devastation during the Asian monsoon season mostly come from poor villages in China and Southeast Asian countries on the coast. Homes swept away and people disappearing. It’s harsh.

Korea is not hit nearly as hard as those places. It might also be that Korea is better prepared for it. At any rate, it wreaks havoc but it doesn’t kill. Not this year anyway.

It’s a double whammy really, as Jang Ma coincides with Yul-Tae-Ya – meaning “still hot at night”.

You can cut the humidity with a knife. I’m taking 3 or 4 cold showers per day. It’s hard to sleep more than an hour or two at a time.

I guess I sound like an old woman in her rocking chair on the porch, bitching bout the weather. But I’ve been told that it’s part of being Canadian. It’s what we do.

So what’s next? The typhoons. Bring it on.

The Cry of the Memi

By far, the most distinctive memory of Asian summer, apart from the sweating, is the Cicadas. In Japan, they’re called Semi. In Korea, they’re the Memi.

The memi are massive flying cockroaches that come along in August and fill all the trees in the city. They produce this loud, offensive, industrial-sounding noise.

It seems most offensive at night. It sounds like they’re outside your window and they want in. So they are drilling a hole through the concrete to get to you.

In Japan, I saw kids playing with them. A student of mine told me the kids always look forward to seeing them. They want to put them in their pocket and take them in the house. Sometimes they find their own way into the house. I always seem to be alone when that happens.