Nearby the South Korean town of Samcheok is a small fishing village with a funny superstition.
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| The lighthouse is a ding! |
Folk-lore in this village has it that a young virgin drowned on a small island off the coast. Her ghost haunted the village, causing bad fishing hauls. A fishermen concluded that exposing himself to the sea while fishing would appease the dead virgin's ghost. Naturally, this plan worked and good fishing hauls returned to the village. The fishermen of this village began exposing themselves every time they sailed and good hauls continued. At some point the fishermen tired of constantly exposing themselves to this virgin ghost and they started carving penises to decorate the cliffs overlooking the ocean instead. Over time this turned into an annual penis-carving competition, and now there is a whole park, called Haesindang Park, filled with penises above this small town.
This place has every type of penis you could imagine. Small. Large. Fat. Skinny. There are Penis animals, penis water cannons, penis benches, and, of course, dozens of wooden carved penises left over from past contests.
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| The benches are dings! |
We enjoyed this park because there were locals and tourists, young and old folks, all enjoying this utterly amusing forest of phallus. Delightful!
And actually, this park is just a symptom of what seems to be a national obsession. Korea is a men-first sort of society, and many believe stamina (in bed, of course) to be very important. There was a global Ginsing expo in Seoul when we were there and other foods, such as live octopus, are consumed under the belief that they are good for stamina. Our friends in Seoul confirmed Korea's fascination with penis, though the penis park is all we needed. Gaggles of giggling middle-aged men and women snapping photos posing with the many members and small children running around below the towering wangs provided priceless moments!
Check out our
Samcheok Picasa album for more penis priceless-ness!
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| Everybody say, "Ding!" |
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| Don't look up little fella!! |
Legend has it, that the Korean virgin had fallin for a German sailor. This sailor before realizing what he would have lost, had traveled back to germany. He perpetually yearned for his little long lost asian girl. When realizing that his life would never be the same without her, he ventured back to this village only to find out the virgin's longing was matched only by his. But little did he no that because she had no boat, she thought she could swim to Germany. Due to modern day technology and stuff, we now know this to be impossible. However, the virgin knew not of geography and died trying. When the German sailor heard of this news, his heart broke and in an attempt to fix this irreparable fate, he recalled the proverb she had shared with him on the day they first met. "The man puts his yang in the the women's yin and all life will be in complete harmony." And thus, the sailor decided their was nothing else he could do but to mend the fabric of the universe as we know it. He knew he should have had, well you know, 'done it' when he had the chance, but a sailor never turns his back on the fish in the sea. But he concluded that all would be right again after he offered his yang to the sea that tore his yin for him. Surprisingly, the german sailor was named Hans Goetz, a distant relative of mine. Those yangs are monument to the my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grand pappy and so.. A monument to my family legacy. Its a small world after all. Anyways the moral of this story is simply... get jiggy with it and all will be alright. Well, all except for AIDS. The 80's didn't really help my historically accurate and morally founded family motto.
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