Show pac mason redd writes descriptive letter home pac amasa mason redd who has trained as photo interpreter in the army intelligence corps is now stationed at seoul in korea the letter to his parents mr and mrs A J redd follows 3 september 1953 seoul city korea dear daar folks there is a lull in my work as usual so I 1 will try to relate a few of interesting experiences of the past few days after the dinner was over danced with us they dont in any way compare favorably with japanese girls the three girl students that were at the party last night were more or less the genuine type korea girl they neither drink or dance and they are very modest and shy just look at them and they giggle the reason they dont dance Is is because of the old destri restriction ct ion put upon social intercourse between litween the sexes even inti anti 41 4 bax ak N 11 A group of koreans at the zoo which consists of one lono lone monkey the women carry the parasol rain or shine b 61 1 r V 1 ad r f 2 M fuel cart the small round objects are soft coal powder pressed into that shape used for cooking with controlled oled burning will last about 24 hours last tuesday we went to the theatre to witness folk dancing and to hear their music we had pur our indigenous friends translating and explaining the lyrics and stories so it was quite interesting and educational their costumes were colorful and their movements graceful to the point of exaggeration but the most peculiar was their music to begin with it originates from even more peculiar instruments they have several kinds of flutes and gongs that are more or less familiar but their harps and violins I 1 have never seen the like ol al before their violin has two strings and the bow strings are strung between them the player holds the instrument on his lap their harp or piano as they call it is about three feet long with many strings that seem to be loose and when it is plucked gives out a noise like a piano tuner at work the combination of these various instruments result in a not too melodious music but not alto geter an unpleasing effect on the senses we went back stage to see the instruments st and the dancers they were as curious of us as we were of them the dancers that is not the instruments the korean music is r nearly all sad as is most oriental music that I 1 have heard all in all it was a very interesting evening last night we had a party at the home of one of our indigenous friends mr kim was our host he is also the dean of the ELI we were served a japanese dish called suki yaki along with liberal rounds of saki light wine in fact for the sukiyaki suki yaki to taste good one must be fairly well plastered I 1 was a very rude guest as every courtesy they have is centered around the drinks yes I 1 guess I 1 lost face with them as just the three students girls and I 1 drink but beside the point the sukiyaki suki yaki is sort of stew a and it was cooked before our eyes by three korean version geisha girls first they start by frying the chunks of beef at least I 1 hope it was beef then they add cabbage onions noodles causes and sugar the stoves were right on the low stands that we sat on the floor to eat at they are I 1 suppose charcoal braziers at least they smoke the crushing blow is the way they serve the sukiyaki suki yaki they first break a raw egg in a small bowl stir it up a little then put a very smal amont of the sukiyaki in with it and its ready to eat of course we had chop sticks and if you dont think it is hard to eat that concoction with chop sticks try it sometime the louder one slurps the food the more polite he is though the geisha girl is a trained entertainer except the GI geisha and she is nothing more than a prostitute these girls we had last night cooked the food poured the drinks sang songs and macy between man and wife restricted strict ed but yet these women go around half naked it seems they put stress on the wrong things the younger generation is changing things now as evidenced last night we taught the girls how to dance but my buddies persuade pur suade them to drink I 1 asked one of the girls how she liked dancing and she giggled and mumbled something which was as much to say she liked it once the ice was broken they were very eager we of course took off our shoes before we entered the house and dancing in stocking feet on rice paper covered floors it was all very interesting one girl by the name of miss lee is a music student and she sang us several operatic ope songs in german she has a very nice voice and it was almost a touch of home to hear her sing about all of that experience and to cap it all we dutifully took our sulpha pills to counter act the many oriental bugs yellow jaundice is very common over here mom I 1 wonder if you would please send me my collegiate dictionary it really belongs to alene but if she take it with her I 1 would would appreciate having it very much send it air mail there much to say so ill close wishing a happy birthday to those who are having birthdays in september love mason |