Baekdu Daegan: On the Ridge in Korea
The longer I live in Korea, the more I come to realize this is a Beat paradise. Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg and their motley crew of Zen lunatics, dharma bums and angelheaded hipsters “burning for the ancient heavenly connection” would have rejoiced in the wild combination of mountains, Buddhism, Shamanism, mountain food, majkoli (a milky rice spirit known as “drunken rice”), hitchhiking, and cheap lodging.
The rugged, ancient beauty of Korean mountain culture is embraced in a new guide to hiking in Korea, Baekdu Daegan Trail: Hiking Korea’s Mountain Spine (Seoul Selection 2010) by New Zealanders Roger Shepherd and Andrew Douch. Roger Shepherd first came to Korea in 2000 and began exploring the Baekdu-daegan, or “white head ridge,” with his friend Andy Douch, who lives and teaches in Korea. In 2007, and Shepherd and Douch starting walking the 735 km length of Baekdu-daegan, reentering civilization 70 days later (by comparison, Jack Kerouac spent 63 days alone on Desolation Peak). Shepherd and Douch truly are desolation angels.
The Baekdu-daegan begins in the north at Mt. Baekdu (2,744 m) along the border of North Korea and China, and winds 1,400 km south to the highest peak in South Korea, Cheonwang-bong (1,915 m) in Jiri National Park. Shepherd wrote a letter to the North Korean Government asking for permission to hike the northern section of the trail, but was denied access for safety reasons.
Baekdu-daegan Trail divides the southern portion of the trail into 17 sections, which are subdivided into day-long hiking courses, and gives detailed plans for hiking all or part of the ridge-line. Each course features diagrams outlining the trail and key points along it, as well as detailed maps of areas through which the trail passes. Water source locations, including GPS coordinates are indicated, as well as camping sites and other accommodation along each section of the trail.
The guide also provides rich historical, cultural, and ecological contexts for the Baekdu-daegan. I first met Shepherd when David Mason, a colleague of mine at Kyung Hee University, organized a trip to a Shaman mountain-worship ceremony. Mason, an authority on Korean Buddhism and Shamanism, is the author of Spirit of the Mountains (Hollym, 1999) and helped Shepherd and Douch with some of the religious dimensions of their journey. The guide includes a section written by Mason on the cultural treasures -- the thousands of Buddhist temples, shrines, altars, statues, paintings – that can found along the trail.
Shepherd was in the middle of a rainy 30-day hike deep in rural Korea when he took a break to dry off and answer a few questions:
JE: First, congratulations on the new book, it’s awesome. Let’s start with a basic question: what is unique about hiking in Korea compared to other parts of the world?
RS: What I like to point out to hikers in Korea is that Korean mountains are not necessarily high, like the Andes or Himalayas, but there are plenty of them. Their accessible heights give you splendid 360-degree views in all directions. I've likened this to looking at a swimming ocean of blue waves, mountain after mountain of misty blue hazy ridge. Indeed in Korea there is an old saying, "over the mountain is a mountain," which completely sums it up. I believe the key figure that makes Korean mountains unique and new to the modern explorer/traveler is its mountain culture. In its nooks and crannies and on its high lofty bald peaks exist temples, shrines, stele's, and other animistic features that reveal to the traveler an identity to Korea that you won't necessarily see in their cities. Korean mountain culture is the back-bone of Korean identity, it is as old as shamanism, and the two along with the latter Buddhism exist at the top of the valleys and the peaks away from the urban metropolis. Despite Korea's speedy modernization and reluctance to admit to its ancient connection with shamanism and mountain worship, many hundreds of thousands or millions of Koreans have managed to maintain Korea's ancient connection to its mountain culture and history. Overall, it can be quite a spiritually moving experience.
JE: You’ve described the Baekdu-daegan as a “great central nervous system.” What do you mean by this?
RS: The Baekdu-daegan has been recognized for thousands of years as the back-bone and sustainer to all life on the peninsula due to its relationship to water management. Water is life, and therefore the vitality of life is connected to the Baekdu-daegan. Hence during the BC period the people of Korea believed that their mountains housed spirits that if looked after and revered, provided them with the necessary sustenance and good will to survive. Later, around the late 9th century, a monk called Doseon Guk-sa recognised the Baekdu-daegan as the main artery of energy in Korea, a kind of Chinese Feng-shui, known in Korea as Pungsu-jiri. So to view it in a topographical or animistic sense, the Baekdu-daegan is the skeletal back-bone, and its energy is the spinal cord, the central nervous system. Its subsidiary ridges are like the arterial network of the human body that spreads that energy throughout the peninsula, down to its smaller ridges which become part of the peninsula's venous system. It's like comparing blood with water, its unimpeded circulation is vital to the health wealth and well being of the humans that thrive on it. The Baekdu-daegan is where it all begins, either physically, mentally, or spiritually.
JE: You’ve spent a lot of time in parts of Korea that don’t see a lot of foreigners. How would you describe your experience with the locals? Did you run into any eccentric mountain folk?
RS: All of my experiences with the locals have been friendly and fun. Koreans are in general very hospitable people towards their foreign visitors, but the Korean rural folk do so in a completely non-pretentious way. Their generosity and curiosity in the new traveler is completely genuine. There's also a strong non-chalant, non-attached way that they go about it as well - a simple small short encounter with you that will leave you feeling wanted and welcome. It's almost like the old folk have been waiting decades to see the faces of the foreigners again, and invite you back in a "where have you been all this time" manner. There's not a lot of vanity going on in rural Korea. Recently I arrived in a small country restaurant, and the two old ladies that ran the joint stripped me down to my trousers and washed me with cold flannels, as my body was so sweaty and dirty from hiking. The Koreans are not shy to help you with anything, and are almost abrasive, in a raw, blue-collar, tough way with their interaction with you...you are made to feel part of the family very quickly.
JE: What is your impression of the section of the Baekdu-daegan north of the DMZ? Do you think you’ll have a chance to explore it some day?
RS: Only if North Korea opens up, and not until the place has been de-mined and the mountains and ridges made safe to travel. However, for as long as I can walk, I would love to be the first foreigner to hike the remaining section of the Baekdu-daegan in the north. It appears to be bigger, meaner and higher. Maybe I will be an older man when this happens, but what better place to disappear into forever.
JE: The mountains of Korea are thought to be inhabited by wizards, hermits, and a diverse cast of spirits. Have you ever seen ghosts or had weird paranormal experiences while hiking or camping?
RS: I once claim to have been visited by a lost American soldier who tried to wake me and get me to move with him. It was a physical encounter where I heard him walking across the crunchy surface in his combat boots, towards me, (frozen in my army bivvie bag - I couldn't move or talk no matter how hard I tried) shake my hip with the sole of his boot, step over me and walk off into the forest. It was after that that I could move, and when looking out from my bivvie bag, couldn't see anything. I have to admit that I had been drinking majkoli that night, so that may of had an affect. However, despite all the sleeping outdoors experiences I've had in Korea, I've never felt safer in its woods. There's no doubt that millions of people have perished in the mountains of Korea over time due to political conflicts, but if there are any lost spirits out there, then they are like everything else in Korea, just friendly. Some monks believed I possessed what is known in Korea as In-yeon, a kind of fate or destiny that connects you with where you are now, a return to a place that you once lived in, in another life.
Photos courtesy of Roger Shepherd.
John R. Eperjesi is an Assistant Professor of English at Kyung Hee University in Seoul. He received his Ph.D in the Literary and Cultural Theory program at Carnegie Mellon University, and is the author of The Imperialist Imaginary: Visions of Asia and the Pacific in American Culture (University Press of New English, 2005). His article on transnational Chinese cinema, “Kung Fu Diplomacy and the Dream of Cultural China,” appeared in Asian Studies Review (vol. 28, 2004). An article on oceanic imaginings in Korean American writer Paul Yoon’s collection of short stories, Once the Shore, will appear in a forthcoming issue of Inter-Asia Cultural Studies. Dr. Eperjesi is also a freelance journalist, his articles have appeared in the Korea Times and Korea Herald.
The longer I live in Korea, the more I come to realize this is a Beat paradise. Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg and their motley crew of Zen lunatics, dharma bums and angelheaded hipsters “burning for the ancient heavenly connection” would have rejoiced in the wild combination of mountains, Buddhism, Shamanism, mountain food, majkoli (a milky rice spirit known as “drunken rice”), hitchhiking, and cheap lodging.
The rugged, ancient beauty of Korean mountain culture is embraced in a new guide to hiking in Korea, Baekdu Daegan Trail: Hiking Korea’s Mountain Spine (Seoul Selection 2010) by New Zealanders Roger Shepherd and Andrew Douch. Roger Shepherd first came to Korea in 2000 and began exploring the Baekdu-daegan, or “white head ridge,” with his friend Andy Douch, who lives and teaches in Korea. In 2007, and Shepherd and Douch starting walking the 735 km length of Baekdu-daegan, reentering civilization 70 days later (by comparison, Jack Kerouac spent 63 days alone on Desolation Peak). Shepherd and Douch truly are desolation angels.
The Baekdu-daegan begins in the north at Mt. Baekdu (2,744 m) along the border of North Korea and China, and winds 1,400 km south to the highest peak in South Korea, Cheonwang-bong (1,915 m) in Jiri National Park. Shepherd wrote a letter to the North Korean Government asking for permission to hike the northern section of the trail, but was denied access for safety reasons.
Baekdu-daegan Trail divides the southern portion of the trail into 17 sections, which are subdivided into day-long hiking courses, and gives detailed plans for hiking all or part of the ridge-line. Each course features diagrams outlining the trail and key points along it, as well as detailed maps of areas through which the trail passes. Water source locations, including GPS coordinates are indicated, as well as camping sites and other accommodation along each section of the trail.
The guide also provides rich historical, cultural, and ecological contexts for the Baekdu-daegan. I first met Shepherd when David Mason, a colleague of mine at Kyung Hee University, organized a trip to a Shaman mountain-worship ceremony. Mason, an authority on Korean Buddhism and Shamanism, is the author of Spirit of the Mountains (Hollym, 1999) and helped Shepherd and Douch with some of the religious dimensions of their journey. The guide includes a section written by Mason on the cultural treasures -- the thousands of Buddhist temples, shrines, altars, statues, paintings – that can found along the trail.
Shepherd was in the middle of a rainy 30-day hike deep in rural Korea when he took a break to dry off and answer a few questions:
JE: First, congratulations on the new book, it’s awesome. Let’s start with a basic question: what is unique about hiking in Korea compared to other parts of the world?
RS: What I like to point out to hikers in Korea is that Korean mountains are not necessarily high, like the Andes or Himalayas, but there are plenty of them. Their accessible heights give you splendid 360-degree views in all directions. I've likened this to looking at a swimming ocean of blue waves, mountain after mountain of misty blue hazy ridge. Indeed in Korea there is an old saying, "over the mountain is a mountain," which completely sums it up. I believe the key figure that makes Korean mountains unique and new to the modern explorer/traveler is its mountain culture. In its nooks and crannies and on its high lofty bald peaks exist temples, shrines, stele's, and other animistic features that reveal to the traveler an identity to Korea that you won't necessarily see in their cities. Korean mountain culture is the back-bone of Korean identity, it is as old as shamanism, and the two along with the latter Buddhism exist at the top of the valleys and the peaks away from the urban metropolis. Despite Korea's speedy modernization and reluctance to admit to its ancient connection with shamanism and mountain worship, many hundreds of thousands or millions of Koreans have managed to maintain Korea's ancient connection to its mountain culture and history. Overall, it can be quite a spiritually moving experience.
JE: You’ve described the Baekdu-daegan as a “great central nervous system.” What do you mean by this?
RS: The Baekdu-daegan has been recognized for thousands of years as the back-bone and sustainer to all life on the peninsula due to its relationship to water management. Water is life, and therefore the vitality of life is connected to the Baekdu-daegan. Hence during the BC period the people of Korea believed that their mountains housed spirits that if looked after and revered, provided them with the necessary sustenance and good will to survive. Later, around the late 9th century, a monk called Doseon Guk-sa recognised the Baekdu-daegan as the main artery of energy in Korea, a kind of Chinese Feng-shui, known in Korea as Pungsu-jiri. So to view it in a topographical or animistic sense, the Baekdu-daegan is the skeletal back-bone, and its energy is the spinal cord, the central nervous system. Its subsidiary ridges are like the arterial network of the human body that spreads that energy throughout the peninsula, down to its smaller ridges which become part of the peninsula's venous system. It's like comparing blood with water, its unimpeded circulation is vital to the health wealth and well being of the humans that thrive on it. The Baekdu-daegan is where it all begins, either physically, mentally, or spiritually.
JE: You’ve spent a lot of time in parts of Korea that don’t see a lot of foreigners. How would you describe your experience with the locals? Did you run into any eccentric mountain folk?
RS: All of my experiences with the locals have been friendly and fun. Koreans are in general very hospitable people towards their foreign visitors, but the Korean rural folk do so in a completely non-pretentious way. Their generosity and curiosity in the new traveler is completely genuine. There's also a strong non-chalant, non-attached way that they go about it as well - a simple small short encounter with you that will leave you feeling wanted and welcome. It's almost like the old folk have been waiting decades to see the faces of the foreigners again, and invite you back in a "where have you been all this time" manner. There's not a lot of vanity going on in rural Korea. Recently I arrived in a small country restaurant, and the two old ladies that ran the joint stripped me down to my trousers and washed me with cold flannels, as my body was so sweaty and dirty from hiking. The Koreans are not shy to help you with anything, and are almost abrasive, in a raw, blue-collar, tough way with their interaction with you...you are made to feel part of the family very quickly.
JE: What is your impression of the section of the Baekdu-daegan north of the DMZ? Do you think you’ll have a chance to explore it some day?
RS: Only if North Korea opens up, and not until the place has been de-mined and the mountains and ridges made safe to travel. However, for as long as I can walk, I would love to be the first foreigner to hike the remaining section of the Baekdu-daegan in the north. It appears to be bigger, meaner and higher. Maybe I will be an older man when this happens, but what better place to disappear into forever.
JE: The mountains of Korea are thought to be inhabited by wizards, hermits, and a diverse cast of spirits. Have you ever seen ghosts or had weird paranormal experiences while hiking or camping?
RS: I once claim to have been visited by a lost American soldier who tried to wake me and get me to move with him. It was a physical encounter where I heard him walking across the crunchy surface in his combat boots, towards me, (frozen in my army bivvie bag - I couldn't move or talk no matter how hard I tried) shake my hip with the sole of his boot, step over me and walk off into the forest. It was after that that I could move, and when looking out from my bivvie bag, couldn't see anything. I have to admit that I had been drinking majkoli that night, so that may of had an affect. However, despite all the sleeping outdoors experiences I've had in Korea, I've never felt safer in its woods. There's no doubt that millions of people have perished in the mountains of Korea over time due to political conflicts, but if there are any lost spirits out there, then they are like everything else in Korea, just friendly. Some monks believed I possessed what is known in Korea as In-yeon, a kind of fate or destiny that connects you with where you are now, a return to a place that you once lived in, in another life.
Photos courtesy of Roger Shepherd.
John R. Eperjesi is an Assistant Professor of English at Kyung Hee University in Seoul. He received his Ph.D in the Literary and Cultural Theory program at Carnegie Mellon University, and is the author of The Imperialist Imaginary: Visions of Asia and the Pacific in American Culture (University Press of New English, 2005). His article on transnational Chinese cinema, “Kung Fu Diplomacy and the Dream of Cultural China,” appeared in Asian Studies Review (vol. 28, 2004). An article on oceanic imaginings in Korean American writer Paul Yoon’s collection of short stories, Once the Shore, will appear in a forthcoming issue of Inter-Asia Cultural Studies. Dr. Eperjesi is also a freelance journalist, his articles have appeared in the Korea Times and Korea Herald.
