Goodbye Korea

28 days are over and it's time to go home. It was definitely one of the greatest experience I ever made. The food, the people and the city I will miss a lot. Actually one month was just to short but even three month would probably not be enough to discover every single part of Seoul and its awesome culture. Comparing any european cities to Seoul european cities really look like villages but I'm looking forward to hopefully visit again in two years. From now on I have to concentrate on my graduating exam. The path has been chosen and the sources are in part collected. But before I'm going back to Enschede to go on with my graduating exam I will have a last stop in France to bring back Yoon for starting her next semester in Dijon.

Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving Day is probably one of the most important days in a korean family. All family members of the husbands root meet in the place of the oldest brother to bless their late people while the oldest brothers wife is responsible for the dinner. In Yoon's family they decided to share this responsibility because it really seems to be a lot of work. After all family members arrived in the place of Yoon's uncle we started building up the set and decorated it with the prepared food. Every dish has its own place. When everything is arranged the oldest male family member starts the ceremony by giving food and drink to their late family members. The other male members follow. After that the whole family shows their respect for the oldest one by kneeing and bowing. Finally the decoration becomes dinner and the mood changes from very formal to very familiar. That day was a really great experience for me. Never had such a ceremony before and I think it will be hard to forget.

My Project - Animated Caricature

Yesterday I finally send the first concept with moodboard for my graduating exam. Not everything is fixed until now but I think it is a good start. When I'm back from South Korea I will go on.

Subject: Conflict between North and South Korea
Graphical Solution: 3D Animation (stereoscopic) / Animated caricature / Sequence of 10 - 20 short episodes (15 - 30 sec.) + Bumper
Style: 30's Mickey Mouse / 40's Popeye / Cartoon

Example Scene:
At the beginning of each episode the viewer stands inside the bureau of Kim Jong Il. While he is attending to his daily challenge creating the most absurd strategy to take over South Korea at first and after that the whole world a counselor enters his bureau. But before Kim Jong Il can finish presenting his strategy the counselor informs him about current circumstances of which his plan could fail finally. Dispairingly Kim Jong Il calls out for war to not loose even more time.

Goal:
Basis will be the caricature. I will use it in moving image which will caricature Kim Jong Il in a comic excessive view. The goal is to criticize the political situation and the social terms of North Korea by observing and pointing out fundamental mistakes and defects. Language will only be used in korean and Kim Jong Il will get identifiable facial features, body language or clothes so that the pictured character is easily to identify as Kim Jong Il. To communicate the message as simple and clear as possible is of prime importance.

Regards

Regards from Korea! I finally decided to make my own postcard. It is much more difficult to find a postcard than expected and if you find one it is ugly but the reason for that is probably that South Korea is not filled up with tourism. Until know I saw maybe a handful foreigners. I really like that fact the culture has not completely disappeared. On Thursday we are going back to Seoul. The last two weeks have been very helpful learning about life in a korean family. Here the husband is still the head of the family and everything is about him. I'm a little bit sad to leave now. I met Yoon's family and they are really great. Two weeks are just to short to get to know someone but I really enjoyed it.

Hot and Dry

Last days we arrived in Busan at the southern seaside of South Korea. That's the place where Yoon's parents are living and it is also Yoon's place of birth. It feels like holiday here especially because today was one of the hottest days of the year and of course that day we have been chosen for visiting a very old traditional temple somewhere in the mountains outside from Busan. At first we traveled with Yoon's aunt, uncle and her cousin to a village which is very closed to the temple and at least as traditional as the temple itself. From there on we went to the temple where I had my first Buddhistic experience praying to Buddha. We finished the day with a typical korean barbecue. The first moment it was a bit disgusting eating raw beef as an appetizer but it tastes much better than expected.