corea

once upon a time in a far away land called corea a beautiful young virgin bride was drowned offshore of a small fishing village. Her husband was not able to swim out in time to save her and after the tradgedy the fish catch in the area began to decline.
Steadily the catch decreased in sinnam, this lovely little fishing village was helpless without the fish that they lived on and sold inland for their livelyhood.
one day a fisherman had to empty his bladder and he did so into the surf  from up on the rocks, that day he caught more fish than he had in weeks before.
remembering the unfulfilled young brides tragic end, he assumed that the girls death had cursed the area and unless she got what was denied the curse would remain.
and so the story of sinnam and its penis park began. i don't know how long ago but judging by the numbers and variety of styles it must have been a long long time back.
today you can go to this little village, which is still small but visibly thriving, the racks of squid and fish drying will attest to this. and if you pay a small fee of 8000 won, ( about 8 dollars canadian) you can enter the park and see just how important making this girl happy was to the generations that followed. the hillside has a all the asian park necessitys, gnarled pines and cleaned stone paths with a rugged shoreline below. the first thing at the entrance that tells you its not just a park but a story is the bundles of  sticks hanging in the trees. all carved to resemble phallic symbols.  then the sticks standing from the ground at chest height, bell ends with faces carved in the shafts these are all obviously old, very old. around a corner you meet the next generations, a giant bronze dick juts from the middle of the path, above that a black stone dick on an axle so it rocks up and down with 3 more erect above it. granite and wood ornate and simple every generation has added an erection. literally hundreds around the countryside.
And at the top of the hill a diorama, lifesize korean fishermen with their dicks to the wind. Halfway down the hill is a fishing museum with aquariums and boats and gear explaining how important the fish are to the people.

In fact if you spend any time looking around this country you will see how much history means to them, when the japanese ruled for 35 minutes in the 70's they wrecked as much as they could to break their spirit. and when they left the korean people rebuilt. painstakingly. they kept the new spelling, when japan took power they renamed corea, the letter k is further down the alphabet than j so that was how the new spelling went. you will still see the old spelling on old buildings and signs.
i met 2 old men in the ancient fortress city inside suwon, who assured me that it was a very new city in relative terms. started in 1796 and finished in 1797 it had artillery emplaceents and was a miracle of modern technology. both men mr. kim and mr. park knew of canadian history which they learned in high school. mr park seved in the korean airforce for 28 years and thanked me personally for all that our people had done for theirs during the korean war. Mr kim sang to me a song about the rocky mountains in the morning, with perfect pitch. he forgot the words halfway but carried the tune anyway.
All in all it was a surreal country to visit, i recommend a visit to anyone with a sense of humour and respect for history.