A Catholic, a Buddhist, and an Atheist Walk Into a Soju Bar...

"If you get lost, don't use the big neon crosses as landmarks. You'll be totally fucked," my co-teacher warned as we walked to the bank. I had been in Korea for all of 36 hours, and I was planning on being lost quite often. So this was disconcerting news - few things are as instantly recognizable as a brightly glowing crucifix set against a pitch-black sky.

This is what I'm talking about.

What exactly were so many churches doing here? I came to Korea in large part because I wanted to live in a predominantly Buddhist country. Asia itself was an ancillary attraction; pandas and tea and chopsticks held no real interest for me until I started practicing Buddhism. Yet here I was in the heart of Asia (or at least some fairly important appendage), and I was surrounded by more Christianity per square kilometer than ever before. It was a little disappointing.

I had done some research before coming, but I hadn't really paid much attention to it. Nothing fails to hold my attention quite like statistics. With that in mind, my apologies for dropping the following numbers on you:

Korea's own National Statistics Office said that about 23% of Koreans considered themselves Buddhists, 26% identified as Christian, and 47% claimed no religious beliefs.

Other surveys may have deviated by a few percentage points, but the overall picture of Korean religiosity was consistent: roughly half of the population could care less about religion, while the opiate-popping types were pretty evenly split between Christianity and Buddhism.

My parents were pretty pleased at the large Christian presence in Korea. Many Westerners equate Christianity with recognizable civilization. And not just the Bible-thumpin', evolution-denyin', vaccine-scornin' ones either. Intelligent, open-minded, educated people can be a little wary of Eastern religions - the New Age-y crystal ball gazers have given Asian traditions a lot of bad press in the West.

There's something comfortable in knowing that there are respectable gentlemen in white collars providing moral instruction, and not just a bunch of  spell-casting headshrinkers dancing around. For my mother, anyways.

Before coming to Korea I tried to imagine the influence each religious group had on Korean society. Buddhism had been around for much longer, I thought. So it must have some pretty deep-seated roots in Korean culture, and it should be obvious to spot its influence. Christianity is newer, but it has the "zeal of the convert" factor in its favor. So which religious tradition would be more dominant in Korean daily life?

It took all of three days to answer that question.

Christian missionaries have been doin' serious work in Korea. They started coming in the 1790s, then royally pissed off the Joseon Dynasty (which was based on Confucian principles) and promptly got massacred. They rallied in the late 19th century when the Hermit Kingdom began to open, willingly or not, to the outside world (namely, the West). And since then they've been on a roll, especially the various Protestant sects (Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, etc.). One of the interesting idiosyncrasies of Christianity in Korea is the differentiation between "Christians" and "Catholics". Apparently the Papists aren't real Christians, and vice versa. In a very somber heaven somewhere, John Calvin nods approvingly.

Buddhism, on the other hand, has been dealing with hard times for a while. The Joseon Dynasty wasn't any fonder of Buddhism than Christianity, burning many temples and forcing monks to flee into the mountains. The dynasty stretched from the late 1300s to the late 1800s, giving it plenty of time to stamp a Confucian identity onto Korea. Confucianism isn't exactly a religion, more like a system of ethics and guidelines for a stable society.  So in some senses Buddhism and Confucianism weren't direct competitors, but they had plenty to disagree about. Confucianism, for all its qualities, is a highly rigid system and the ambiguities of Buddhism were an unsightly turd in the teapot. So Buddhism took it on the chin for a couple centuries, before making a comeback in the 20th century.

Today though, Buddhism in Korea is facing a tougher opponent than the Joseon Dynasty. Christianity has been, throughout the centuries, the Cassius Clay of conversion (to make an awkward comparison, since Clay himself converted to Islam and became Muhammad Ali). Churches are rivaled in number only by convenience stores.

Last weekend, I was walking through the streets of Myeongdong, a popular shopping district in Seoul. There the religion is fashion - the faithful bow down before stiletto heels and leave generous offerings at the cash register altars. It was a glorious summer day - in Minnesota people would have been in tank tops, though Koreans have the cold-tolerance of Galapagos lizards and thus wore hoodies. But moving on...

Entrenched in a busy intersection there was a group of about twenty Korean people. One man was screeching into a blown-out microphone in a tone I have only heard from propaganda films or over-excited fruit vendors. As we drew closer I could see they were a Christian group. They carried signs similar to the one below.

Gets right to the point.

I don't speak Korean, but I am guessing that we were being threatened with eternal damnation, ceaseless torment, perpetual suffering, fire and/or brimstone.  In the business world I think it is termed a hard sell.

And this is a pretty common occurrence in Korea. Street demonstrations are only the most attention-grabbing conversion efforts. Live in this country long enough, and you'll encounter some well-meaning evangelists who ask you to attend their church (some standard selling points: English worship services, rockin' social events, lots of pretty girls/handsome dudes). Sometimes a simple "No, thanks," is enough to send them on their way, and sometimes you are stuck in an extremely uncomfortable conversation of interminable length. People are determined to spread the Good Word, and they aren't easily discouraged.

I've yet to see any equivalent actions undertaken by Buddhist groups in Korea. Generally speaking, the most obvious sign of a Korean Buddhist's religious affiliation is the small band of prayer beads, or mala, worn on the wrist. Occasionally you'll see a grey-robed monk wandering the streets for alms, but they don't carry signs or megaphones. They are easy to ignore.

It's not surprising, then, that Christian recruiting efforts have been much more successful in recent years. On the streets of Korean cities, Christianity is a visible and dynamic presence. Buddhism is generally relegated to the home or remote temples, which is to say: out of the realm of public daily life.

If you're a Westerner sympathetic to Buddhism, these trends can be very worrying. We were born and raised in an environment heavily influenced by Christianity, and many of us have become very familiar with its shortcomings. We know about the sexual abuses committed by priests, we've learned about the persecutions carried out by over-zealous missionaries, we are cynical about the corruption and ungodly behavior so often seen at the highest levels of church authority.

It becomes easy to support Buddhism almost blindly. Most of us get out Buddhism-related information through pop cultures. We know that Buddhists are supposed to be super-chill, peaceful types that never get angry and never eat meat. They don't yell, poop, or cheat on their spouses. On the other hand, we've seen Christians do all those nasty things. Buddhists are friendly benign hippies, minus the pot. Christians are intolerant ignoramuses, harshing whatever your buzz happens to be. Familiarity breeds contempt.

Of course, it's not that simple. My girlfriend attends a Buddhist university in Seoul. There are many non-Buddhist students there, just like there are non-Christian students at schools like Notre Dame in the U.S. In any case, one of the Christian student groups recently donated three brand new copy machines to the university's computer lab. A week later, they were mysteriously broken. It was eventually discovered that a group of Buddhist students had tampered with the machines because they were upset at the growing Christian influence at the school. That's a very non-Buddhist thing to do - at the same time, it's very human. We get fearful, we get angry, we lash out.

Anger. Fear. Delusion. The Buddhist teachings are, at their core, a series of trainings for overcoming these obstacles to happiness. We can't be happy if we're scared, pissed off, or confused all the time. But we can't overcome these habits simply by declaring ourselves "Buddhist". It's just a word. It doesn't mean anything. In fact, some of the best "Buddhists" I know aren't Buddhists at all.

Last Saturday, I met a man at a fried chicken restaurant. I never cook on the weekends. It was about 2 a.m., and I'd just returned to Cheonan from Seoul. He invited me to have a beer with him, and I reluctantly accepted. I've been stuck in too many one-sided conversations with Koreans who don't speak English but like to laugh at my long hair and non-proportional faces. I wasn't looking forward to speaking with this
half-drunk ajusshi.


It turned out to be one of the most fascinating conversations I've ever had in Korea. Although his English could generously be described as "broken", the man was an amateur history buff and student of religion. He rattled off a litany of facts about Douglas MacArthur.  He had read Thich Nhat Hanh extensively. He was deeply interested in the Indian tribes of North America. He spoke with kindly admiration about totemism and animism.

He asked me my religion, and I told him that I followed Buddhism. He replied that he was a Catholic himself, but he held deep respect for the Buddhist teachings. It was part of Korea's heritage, he said, and there was a lot of wisdom to be found there. We sat and smiled at each other for a few minutes, occasionally mumbling some remark about the time or weather, and then returned to our homes. A Korean Catholic and an American Buddhist. Weird.

I've been worried about the future of Buddhism in Korea (and all of Asia for that matter). Modern Buddhism is not really a mission-oriented religion. People hold their individual beliefs, but there's little emphasis on spreading those beliefs to others. In theory this should allow Buddhism to coexist peacefully with other religions. And when dealing with Eastern religions such as Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, or ancestor worship, this has usually been the case to one extent or the other (with many exceptions of course - religious wars are not an exclusively Western phenomena). Western religions are a bit different though - the major monotheistic religions hold exclusive truth claims. As Christianity begin to make inroads into previously Buddhist countries, will its leaders and practitioners tolerate the old traditions? The tension is high right now - sometimes, it's enough to make you wish for just a little bit more apathy. At least the people who don't care about religion aren't tearing down temples.

On the subject of temples, I visited one the other day. On May 10th Koreans celebrated the Buddha's Birthday. It was a national holiday, apparently, but I didn't see many signs of celebration in the city. Maybe that's good - the Buddha's coming hadn't been commercialized in the same way as Christmas or Easter. Only a few paper lanterns strung up on street signs gave any indication that there was something special going on today.

I'd like to report that the Buddha's birthday was marked by golden beams of sunlight, millions of delicate lotus petals falling from the sky, the harmonious trilling of birds and whatnot, but in actuality the weather was lousy. Grey, overcast, and buckets upon buckets of rain. Climbing up the steep mountain, muddy and wet, I heard the words of my meditation teacher Mark Nunberg in a bemused voice, "Hmmm, this is how it is now. Being clammy and sore is like this. Can this be OK?" And it really was - I was just thrilled to be there. Celebrating the Buddha's birthday at a real temple. Now that's neat.

When we reached the top of the mountain, I forgot that I was ever worried about Buddhism in Korea. In front of the large bronze Buddha statue, people were lighting incense, chanting, and bowing. Thousands of pink, purple, and white lanterns hung from strings crisscrossing the courtyard. Teenagers helped crotchety grandmas across wide puddles, their gnarled hands carrying brightly colored prayer candles. A monk's chants rang out from the main meditation hall, accompanied by the steady beat of a small drum. Inside, people were bowing, meditating, and leaving gifts at the altar of the Buddha. Maybe after that they went home to smoke, drink, gossip, fornicate, or whatever - actually of course they did, they are human. Buddhists aren't perfect. But man, it was a beautiful time, and there was some real joy in being surrounded by like-minded people.

In one hundred years, I hope foreigners are still writing rambling, disjointed essays about Buddhism in Korea. And I hope they remember to bring umbrellas when they visit the temples. That rain can be ruthless.