Hiking up a mountain in the dark to look for mushrooms isn’t how most people wish to spend their Saturdays. None the less, that’s where I was one late October morning, trudging along behind a pack of Korean teachers.
They had lectured me all morning on the special properties of the songyi mushroom (which I was predictably informed are a “well-being food, good for skin”), teaching me how to recognize them and their distinct smell. However, I wasn’t really there for the mushrooms; I was there for the experience.
You won’t find “mushroom hunting with locals” in your South Korea Lonely Planet, but in Mungyeong, it’s far from unexpected. Situated an hour away from Daegu, in the northeast corner of Gyeongsangbukdo, Mungyeong is far from everything except Korean traditions.
Here, the people still pick mushrooms on the weekend, clean tombs for Chuseok, pray to their ancestors on Seollal, line their roofs with kimchi pots, and dry their chillies on the pavement.
You won’t see these things in Seoul or Daegu, but you will in Mungyeong - one of the few and ever decreasing places in Korea where foreigners can still see tradition in everyday life without partaking in the kitsch of folk villages.
During my year in Jeomchon (a sub-city within the Mungyeong municipality), the locals never hesitated to show me their hospitality and traditions. I was constantly surprised with invitations for dinner with my neighbors, invitations to meet local ceramic masters, invitations to participate in family ceremonies, invitations to visit distant relatives, invitations to pick mushrooms and invitations to hike in remote locations.