A Week in the Life: Shamans and Gangsters

A week in the life of me in Seoul: There’s a sound echoing all around the mountainside as the winter sun sets, casting an orange glow on everything. On weird rock formations that resemble people, mudang pray to the mountain gods. Their trance-like chanting is the sound I hear from far away, travelling on the wind from high rocky peaks. Here on Iwangsan (which translates as ‘Tiger Mountain’), you can see shamanist rituals, offerings at shrines to the spirits of nature, as well as amazing views of Seoul. Right smack in the city limits, this mountain rises up from a busy sea of concrete, but from up here it seems tranquil and the quiet is just what I need! Sadly there are no tigers, at least not anymore, but their images still decorate the sides of temples here. The aged and yet timeless mountain god is usually depicted on temples as an ancient man with a long white beard riding a tiger. I can’t help it, but when I see this I think of the lyrics of ‘Holy Diver’ by Ronnie James Dio, ‘Ride the Tiger!’ Old peaceful temples and Dio…a good mixture. Coming up here to one of the many mountains surrounding Seoul, you can really feel out on your own. Passing an ancient bronze bell about my height, I walk amid a complex of Buddhist temples perched on the hillside, in winding lanes wide enough for one person only, and up worn steps to the sound of shamanist ritual music. This place is a world away from the high-rise universe in the background, and yet the crisscrossing telephone cables overhead and satellite dishes fixed onto temple roofs, put this place square in the real world. I had read about this place and was hoping to see some shamanistic rituals taking place out in the open on this mountain. This is the oldest and still most mysterious religion in Korea. Based in the primeval belief in the power of nature, and the concept that by praying and giving offerings to the spirits, they will look after us in return, Similar beliefs exist all over the world, from the shamans of the Mongolian steppe who worship the Sky Father, Tengri, and the Earth Mother, to the Native Americans, shamanism is as alive today as it was thousands of years ago. The closest relation to Korean shamanism would probably be Japan and its Shinto faith in the gods, guardians and spirits of nature. It is truly amazing to see this way of life first-hand, people praying in the same way as the ancient people that walked the Earth.

The shamanistic shrine here on the mountain was originally on Namsan ( the ‘South Mountain’), but it was leveled by the Japanese invasion forces. Soon after, it was rebuilt in secret where it stands today, and remained hidden on this mountain all this time, facing its original site and overlooking Seoul. As I came to the shrine there was a ceremony taking place. Loud cymbal crashes could be hear from way below, and as I got closer the music became more frantic. Drums, flutes, bells, all accompanied the ritual to the gods. I couldn’t see what was going on inside, it was closed to outsiders like me! As I walked past the door swung open for a moment, and a woman came out dressed in bright pink colors, inside was full of people similarily dressed in the brightest most garish colors. Food was piled in offering to the spirits that live on the mountain, and they danced to the tantric sounds. Overlooking the temples I found huge ghostly figures looking down on me, they are called Zen Rocks. Eroded by wind and rain for a thousand years they now look like weird faces, and one appears as if a giant tiger has scratched its massive paw along it. A Buddhist monk was explaining about it to two girls, as I gazed out across the horizon, the sun setting, a peaceful golden hue covering the city, and distant peaks standing guard over the people below. Walking along the granite rocks on a mountain path worn away by the elements, I came across one old woman, and two groups praying. In each group the woman took the lead beating the drum, or cymbal in a fast dance-like rhythm as she chanted. Women have a special role in shamanism, related to the idea of the Earth Mother, but men can also commune with these spirits The Mudang is a conduit for the spirits, which come to them and communicate through them, there are photographs of old Mudang dancing on the blade of a sword while chanting is a strange, otherworldy voice. Many use this power to tell the future, as they have done for centuries, and still do today in Korea. People go to the shamans to find out their destiny, and although in the predominantly Christian and Buddhist modern Korea they are viewed with mystery and seen as something best kept away from, they are becoming more and more popular with young people as fortune tellers. All along the streets, near Konkuk University for example, you’ll see queues of girls lined up waiting to hear about romance, exam results, and the unexpected at the semi-permanent red tents of the fortune tellers. In this way, the idea of the shaman fortune tellers is taking on a new and cool image for the 21st century. Less and less are they seen with fear or suspicion by the very devout Christian youths, going to the fortune teller is for fun, and not such a big deal anymore. That’s how traditions are transformed and kept alive down through the ages. Shamanism might go through a lot of changes, as well as a huge make-over to fit into the modern fast paced life of Seoul, but it seems like it can be easily adapted into life here.

Seoul has an incomparable variety, and living here shows that all the time. In one week I can be watching shamanist rituals on a mountain top, and then come face-to-face with a couple of gangsters. ‘Jo Pok’ are the Korean yakuza, and did I mention we were all naked at the time? Yeah, the public baths are an experience in Seoul, where you can bump into anyone. When in Korea, do like the Koreans! You have to get over any qualms about getting naked, so get over it strip down and jump in. The saunas, or public baths, are a great way to totally get away from the pace of the streets, or in cold weather like it is right now, it’s the best place to be! Warm, heated floors are the best Korean invention, and have been employed for a thousand years in the palaces and traditional houses. It worked by lighting a fire under the floor, in a stove that heated the entire house from underneath. This is much more sensible and works much better than how we do it at home. In the sauna, or jimjilbang, you can chill out in various hot baths and steam rooms, and even sleep there. And so it was, waking up early from a night there that I ran into two Korean gangters, the Jo Pok. One was sleeping like a baby, totally covered in tattoos. Like the Japanese yakuza, the Jo Pok are tattooed from head to foot, marking them out to all as people you don’t mess with. Everywhere but head, hands and feet is tattooed with intricate floral and animal designs. Unfortunately, my Korean isn’t up to scratch (apart from getting by in basic conversations involving food!), so we got by with a combination of gestures and broken Korean and English. He told me that he didn’t have to pay for the tattoos, I guess they come with the job! Jo Pok are really active in Korea, and their own brand of organized crime and violence has an edge, guns are illegal in Korea, so the gangsters stick to knives, and machetes. Having lived here, I know that Korea is one of the safest countries in the world, people here can park their motorbikes on the street with the keys left in, and even the engine running. Girls can leave laptops in a café without any worry that three hours later when they come back it won’t have run away! Of course, in every country there is an underworld, and in Korea it can be lethal to anyone that goes off the beaten track, even if they are friendly guys, you have to watch out!

So, between encounters with shamans on the tranquil mountain and gangsters in the sauna, this week in Seoul has been more than cool.

23 Nov 2009 Seoul

21st Century Pirate Radio

Here’s to the heroes of the waves, the eternally young of spirit, the rebels with a cause to say ‘F**k you!’ to the Man, and to live free for music. Where are they now? Go back to the 1960’s, to a place and time so far removed now from our lives on the verge of 2010 that it may as well be another world, existing only on movie screens and hidden dreams. Can you imagine a time when rock and roll was subversive, that even hearing it would make youths tear off their clothes, have sex with everyone while smoking Mary-Jane…all to the sweet quadraphonic sound of The Who, Hendrix, and the Stones. So the pirates took action, and the fate of free music for the world, into their own hands, and their voices rang out as a clear beacon in the long dark night of the soul. They broadcast symphonies of sound into the waves of silence, and opened the way for all of the freedom of music and choice of hundreds of radio stations we have today. Radio Luxembourg, Radio Scotland’s pirate ship, Radio Jackie, Radio Caroline, Radio Atlanta, and Denmark’s Radio Mercur. The boat did indeed rock, but will it rock no more? The valiant legends of those days in the long summer of love spoke out to the people. They said ‘open your knees and feel the breeze baby’, they asked, ;who out there will rock with me?, they preached ‘do not fear anything or anybody in this world!’ Just live for the day and for the purest soundtrack to life we could’ve been given! The people listened. But who do we listen to now? In this time of total individualism, where how you live and what you listen to are your choice, how do we create and keep our identity? I’m of the opinion that we don’t. That’s what is fundamentally wrong with the world today. We’re searchers without a goal without any idea of what we’re looking for, we want to be treasure hunters but forgot the map. There was no map to begin with. So we head out there into the world looking for ourselves, sure that one day we will find ‘truth’. There was a time when you could find it. The struggle against the status quo in the 1960’s and 70’s gave youth a purpose. The music defined them. Long hair and flares identified their cause like a flag of peace and love in face of the Vietnam War, and the oppressively controlling governments in both the US and Britain. Where do we find ourselves? The Beatles went to India, and came back transformed into tantric yogis treading barefoot on the virgin earth. Go there today and you’ll find a lot of other people with the same goal, but in this new crowded tourist trail to inner peace you’ll have to get in line and pay your entry fee to nirvana. Nepal was the great undiscovered kingdom of soaring peaks and spiritual enlightenment, now a hundred thousand trekkers fill the holy mountains and crowd Katmandu. As in the 1969 iconic film Easy Rider Peter Fonda and Denis Hopper set out on the road, like Jack Kerouac, across the US to discover the meaning that’s out there. What they find however is that they missed it, the summer of love was over. What are you left with? What do we fight against today that identifies us, or are we all so individualistic now that we’re far beyond this kind of soul-searching that defined the previous generations?




‘We may be gone! You may shut us down, but those songs will still be written, those songs will still be sung and it will be the wonder of the world’, Philip Seymour Hoffman says as their pirate radio ship sinks in the fantastic 2009 film The Boat that Rocked. (Go and watch this movie it will change your life!) Music is the wonder of the world, that’s the way it was and that’s how its going to stay. Given, the soundtrack to the 60’s was a different tempo, it struck a new chord in the hearts and minds of the world, and it had a different meaning: a celebration of the freedom they didn’t quite have yet, but were fighting for. It’s the self-same freedom of speech and music, of thought and lifestyle that we have today but don’t appreciate. We search for new enemies in the world, big countries seek terrorists and chase shadows to war across the globe, they fear economic Armageddon and epidemic flu’s, all to occupy our every waking thought, so we don’t quite realize how good we have it. Humans need something to fight against, we require combat, a threat to our survival, a restriction on our desired way of life so we can raise our voices in unison against our oppressors. It seems we don’t know what to do in peace-time, but we’re damn lucky our world has it for now, other places on the planet aren’t so lucky. We want that rebellious time of the 60’s, of love over war, where music conquers and gives hope to all, but I guess we are rebels without a cause. The world has grown for me, not become smaller as so many people say without thinking of the implications. In the past, radio gave the news from the world, but it was a smaller one. Today we can’t pretend our country is the only one, the world is a big, imperfect, and far from unified place. So do we take up the cause of others who can’t defend themselves? What place has music in this new bigger and more confusing world?

I would call for a return of the pirates of the airwaves. Just because their battle with authorities won us all the stations we have today, many if not most are still controlled by the very Man the radio warrior disc jockeys of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s fought against. Ask yourself this, how many radio DJ’s have you heard say ‘F**K’ lately? Not many. Sure, its just a word, but in modern communication terms it’s the most powerful one we’ve got. That word is the bombshell. It deserves its due, and deserves to be used! That four-letter beloved word is a symbol of freedom to say whatever you like, about who you like, whenever you like! In a world where we are now going to war, supporting war, or just plain standing by and doing nothing, we need those heroes to speak out, through songs, literature, poetry, art, and all of it summed up in the words of our generation out of touch with itself and lost for new words to define ourselves, broadcast on the air for all to hear. Pirate radio will live on as long as there’s a will and as long as we don’t forget the rebels of the 60’s, the philosophers of rock and roll, the poets of song, the maestros of the waves on that open sea, the mean and women that would die for music. May we be so brave. May you throw yourself into this moment, the sunshine of your love, the true voice on the mic that whispers to the lost reaches of your heart, the music that takes you to a place undreamed of, and defines your soul in the search for the wonder of the world. Although the summer of 1967 saw pirate radio banned in the UK, that wasn’t even close to the end of the story. Dublin’s Phantom radio broadcast free metal and rock for years before finally hanging up their Jolly Roger headsets and turning legitimate. Pirate Cat in the US broadcasts freely as you read this, and the government cant stop them, as the law states that in times of war free radio is allowed. The US is now in an ‘unending war’. Digital radio pirates across the globe can now reach millions through the web and you can get their free music beamed straight on to your IPod. Free music and free speech can equal jail time even today. Pirates get caught, radio gets shut down, it goes with the territory, but there’ll always be more, that’s their legacy, to pass on the message, the inspiration, and courage to hoist the flag. Amen.





"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes the freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." Universal Declaration Of Human Rights Article 19