Just reread my last entry, and thought, "You know, rabbits are just inherently funny."

Okay, so the fuzzy little bunnies that the old lady in the subway sells on the weekends (along with puppies sometimes) aren't so funny. But cartoon bunnies seem inherently funny, especially when I imagine one furiously pounding away at rice in order to make ddok, with a mad gleam in its eye.

Or maybe this is all just in my head, and traceable back to that Warner Brothers' version of the Barber of Seville with Bugs getting on top of Elmer Fudd's head while manically massaging shampoo into his nonexistent hair. You don't get more comically genius than that.
---------------
Went to church AND temple yesterday, so had to stay up late to do homework.

Hence, feeling droopy today.

The service I went to is the English service of the MyungSung Church, where my cousin's husband is a pastor. My uncle, who is the only Protestant in my dad's family (this may be amazing on two fronts: 1. these days, it's hard to find a Korean family with only one Christian; and 2. considering that my grandfather was a Buddhist monk, it's pretty ironic that his son converted to a religion that does not recognize the validity of any other), took me to his son-in-law's service, and very nicely sat through it all, even though his English isn't all that good.

There was a hand bell choir, which reminded me greatly of junior high, and a beautiful string quartet, and the usual church choir, of course. I liked hearing all the music.

After the service, my uncle took me to see my cousin, the beautiful Miss Korea look-alike. We walked into the room to find her sitting with two men, each of whom could have been a viable contestant for Mr. Korea. One of them spent 8 years in the States and came back to do his mandatory military service here; he's my cousin's cousin (from her mother's side) and had (at least on that day), the most amazing stand-up hair-do. Along for having a weakness for cutesy princess t-shirts (which I confessed to in the last entry), I also must admit that I admire the male preener hairstyle in which every hair is artfully slicked upward, utterly defying gravity.

A Japanese guy in my boarding house had the same hairdo, and I asked him once how long it took to create. About an hour, he said.

Wow.

The other Mr. Korea contestant moved to the States when he was 12, and so has perfect command of both languages. He's using this to his advantage in his chosen career of acting. I think I heard someone say that he's an announcer or a newscaster or something.

In the presence of all this prettiness and hair gel, I felt quite discomfited. But they were quite nice. They all had to leave pretty soon to go to choir practice, and Actor Dude asked if I were coming back the next week, from which ensued a short but uncomfortable exchange:

"So, you're going to come back next week, right?"

"Uhhhh, I'm not sure yet."

"Why not? You should come back."

"Well, I went to my friend's church last weekend and so I might go back there."

"Oh, so you're looking around? But you should come back here, you know."

"Yes, maybe."

"Why not?"

At this point, it was on the tip of my tongue to say, "Cuz I'm not Christian," but it occurred to me that if I did say so, the efforts to get me back to this church would be redoubled, so I said, "Perhaps."

"Okay, right, no pressure." (Ha!)

My uncle took me to lunch afterwards, during which I asked him why he had converted to Christianity. He said his wife was Christian, so that was the original reason, but then he also saw that a lot of good people went to church, that church was a good way to meet your friends and family members regularly, that the American president was sworn in on a Bible, etc. He mentioned grace later on (this is all an approximation of his words; I hope I got the gist right).

After my uncle dropped me off at home, I spent about an hour goofing off, then went with my dad to a Buddhist temple that held a weekly meeting in English. We arrived a little late; they were already in the midst of chanting, but we were welcomed right in.

I must say, though, that Buddhist chants transliterated into English make for complete gibberish: "namu ba ra ba ra cho sun" is a typical line. Even the Korean, I think, doesn't mean much unless you know the original Chinese characters.

After the chanting, the monk, who is from Bangledesh and went to Sri Lanka for monk school, gave a short talk on friendship and its importance in Buddhism. Then we meditated for about 10 minutes, concentrating on breathing.

Or rather, in my case, trying to concentrate on breathing while trying to banish thoughts such as:

-Man, these jeans are tight.

-Did I gain some weight? I don't remember these jeans being so tight.

-I need to stop going to the Mini-Stop at school during study break. I'm definitely gaining weight.

-Aaaagh. My joints are killing me! How old am I again?

-Owwww, my foot's falling asleep. Okay, the monk said it didn't matter if we sat lotus position as long as we held our spines straight so we could breathe properly. So I'm gonna shift position... ahhhh.

-Shoot, now I'm not sitting up straight.

-Huh. Maybe I'll just take a little peek at what's going on. That's a cool painting of a woman. No wait, that's a man.

-Wonder if this statue of Buddha qualifies as an idol (of the forbidden type) under the 10 Commandments?

After about 10 minutes or so, the monk signaled that we were done, and we recited an English translation of the four Buddhist goals. Roughly: 1. help people; 2. wipe out suffering; 3. learn the Dharma (the teachings of Buddha); 4. achieve enlightenment.

I don't know if that's the right order, but you get the idea.

At the end of this recitation, we repeated a very curious and interesting phrase: "May all living things be happy. May all living things be happy. May all living things be happy."

My dad said he's never heard this particular phrase being recited before. However, it is in line with Buddhist precepts. The Dalai Lama himself has said that the purpose of life is to be happy.

I could live with that.

After this was all concluded, the 15 or so of us sat on the floor and snacked on tangerines, ddok (made by rabbits on the moon), crackers, and a wonderfully fragrant tea.

After this too was concluded, my dad and I were walking to the car when he said, "Those people are a little... strange, right?" I laughed pretty hard at that one.

Well, yes, it was a rather motley crew: a young guy from Norway who was studying martial arts in Korea; a physicist/artist who showed us all the drawings in his little book; a girl who'd been practicing yoga for 5 years and so wanted to approach it from the spiritual side; and a 40-something Irish Canadian woman who was teaching English at Korea University, had written two books, evinced some hard-core feminism; and said that she understood how the Korean people felt during the IMF crisis of 1997, because she was Irish, and she could sympathize with the feeling of loss of control, shame, and being colonized.

I've always said that Koreans were the Irish of Asia. (She agreed.) See, Kim is an Irish name!

Church people, in contrast, were very normal. Probably the cream of the crop in young Korean society.

In class today, I mentioned that I went to both places on Sunday, and might keep going to both. The gentle, earnest Japanese nun exclaimed, "Oh, come to our congregation too!"

Heck, why not?