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| Korea Times |
How many seasons?
By Jacco Zwetsloot
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The one thing that I feel sure we all heard ad infinitum back then was that Korea has four seasons. It was repeated so often and in so many settings and formats that foreigners adopted it more in jest and mockery than in something sincerely meaningful.
I grew up in Melbourne, Australia, where we joke that, like the Crowded House song, there are "Four Seasons in One Day." An extreme example was when my wife Jimin first visited Australia for Christmas in December 1998. It is usually hot and dry at that time of year, with temperatures in the 30s, but on Boxing Day afternoon a freak storm brought a brief snowfall to parts of Victoria. In Melbourne it can be sunny in the morning, raining and dreary at lunchtime, and cool but otherwise tolerable in the afternoon. Despite the often scorching hot summers, winter temperatures usually stay above freezing point.
Even though there are noticeable seasonal weather patterns, one always had to watch the weather forecast to get a sense of what clothes to put on the next day ― and that was not always accurate. The result of all this is that, throughout any given month, it is possible to wear any combination of clothing that you own, with some exceptions at either temperature extreme.
It was with that background that I came to Korea and heard "We have four seasons." Sure, I thought, so do we. When I worked at Korea.net, producing English language promotional material for the Korean government, I used to groan inwardly every time I read a colleague's text that contained this meme.
But over the years I have come to realize how those distinct seasons affect life. To start just with clothing, in Korea you might as well box up your summer gear and keep it in storage for six months, because you are not going to need it from November to May. The reverse is also true. What's more, while in temperate Melbourne winters I never had to wear thermal underwear, in Korea I sometimes do. The extremes and consistency of heat and cold, dryness and humidity are unlike those I experienced in my childhood, and so I have accrued a lot more season-specific clothing in Korea than I had in Melbourne.
This makes watching Korean television almost a forensic challenge, because you can tell which season a given piece of outdoor footage was filmed in just by looking at what people in it are wearing and what the weather is like. When I watch, for example, SBS's "Animal Farm" on a Sunday morning, I can easily know whether a given segment was filmed recently or a few months ago.
Some Korean dramas even incorporate seasons into their title. In the early to mid-2000s, there was a spate of such shows: "Autumn in My Heart," "Winter Sonata," "Summer Scent" and "Spring Waltz." I can't say I am a big fan of drama series, but once Jimin and I had to watch all of "Winter Sonata," and the number of scenes involving one character tenderly adjusting a thick scarf around the neck of another, or of selling winter socks in the marketplace, drove me slowly but surely to distraction.
Even now, more than a decade later, if Jimin hands me a scarf or re-ties the knot that I carelessly tied before I leave the house, it reminds us of Bae Yong-joon and Choi Ji-woo. I cannot recall climactic conditions ever rising to the status of a wordless character in an Australian TV show ― unless it involved living in or traveling to the outback.
In Korean winter, it is almost unthinkable to sit outside on plastic chairs and eat a leisurely meal with friends. That is very much a warm weather activity, and Seoul's alleys in many neighborhoods are full of restaurants whose available seating capacity expands outdoors around mid-May, only to shrink inside again in November.
The appearance of outdoor gas furnaces ― long a familiar sight to Melbourne residents ― in Seoul about a decade ago has made it possible to sit outside in an enclosed verandah, maybe with a blanket over one's lap, but it is still a very different experience to dining al fresco in the summer.
Korean spring brings with it torture for people with allergies, as all kinds of pollens and plant fibers are blown around, many causing rhinitis and sinuses to act up. There is also yellow dust, apparently sand blown from the Gobi desert. Now, in recent years, we have fine dust pollution added to that mix.
I count myself lucky in that I am not much affected ― knock on wood ― by these airborne terrors. Some people can feel a high PM count just by breathing it, but I am oblivious. I am sure that does not mean that any deleterious effects to my respiratory system can be forgotten about, merely that I cannot feel the damage being done.
Travelling in a Seoul bus in summer and winter can be a chore. While it used to be the case that the outside temperature more or less matched that inside, now thanks (?) to climate control, the opposite is true. In summer, my fellow commuters and I frequently reach up to close the air vents above us lest we freeze to death, while in winter there is danger of being steamed like a piece of ddeok.
Pre-modern, agricultural Korea had 24 solar terms, depending on where the earth and the sun were in relation to each other and the annual cycle gave signs as to when to begin and end various farming activities.
Each term had its own name and natural phenomenon that coincided with it, from the seeding of millet to the awakening of insects from winter hibernation. The names for these solar terms can still be seen on most Korean calendars, though not everyone remembers what they signify, because now that Korea is a highly urbanized society, people do not have the time or the proximity to nature to notice some of the changes.
According to the table of solar terms I just consulted in Wikipedia, autumn begins on August 8 and heat withdraws on August 23. We'll see if that holds true this year.
Since my arrival here in 1996, it seems to me and to many Koreans I talk to that springs and autumns are getting shorter, while summers and winters wax in length. Year after year, the icy tentacles of winter seem to be stretching out, like the hand of God on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, to greet the cloying fingers of summer.
It seems like one day they will meet and hold hands, forever shutting out spring and autumn from existence. It is difficult to be sure if the lengths of seasons are actually changing over time, or if that is an illusion of perception, but one thing is for sure: I almost never hear or read Korean people talking about "four distinct seasons" anymore. And I kind of miss that.
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