June 11, 1971: My Second Trip to Japan
	May 1, 1971: A Visit to Namsan Mountain in Seoul
	Return to the Index for 1971

This will be a bit of an odd album page. Most of the previous ones have been devoted to a single trip or single event, but as it turned out, our visit to Seoul's Namsan Mountain on May 1 was the last occasion on which I left Camp Howze for a single purpose and took more than a few pictures- except for my second trip to Japan in June. And when I returned from Japan, I only had time to wind up my personal and professional affairs before I rotated back to the United States. In fact, I already have my new orders- an assignment at the US Army Finance Center in Fort Harrison, Indiana.

All the rest of the pictures I took while overseas (except for the trip to Japan and my stop in Hawaii on the way back to the States) I took during the month of May, and it is on this single page that I want to place these pictures- even though they have little that ties them together. I'll just put them in sections by topic, and I won't worry particularly about just when each set of pictures was taken.

The Move to Camp Edwards

It was at this time, in early May, that the Finance office moved to Camp Edwards, a bit further North up the road to Munsan. For the rest of my stay in-country, I commuted back and forth to Camp Howze. The living conditions at Edwards, although as modern as those at Howze, were such that I chose to remain where I was for the last few months.

Camp Edwards was quite new, and it had better facilities for servicemen, so most of us moved there. Camp Howze became a satellite base, basically a large motor pool and equipment depot for the 82nd Engineers.

So each morning one of my enlisted men would pick me up at Howze, and we would drive the ten minutes to Edwards.

By the way, you might think that my asking one of the enlisted men working in the Finance Office to get up a bit earlier in order to check out a jeep from the motor pool and come to Camp Howze to pick me up, and then take me back in the afternoon, seems a bit elitist or a bit demanding.

But you would be wrong. One thing most soldiers DON'T get to do during their tours in Korea is drive a vehicle. Those who do are usually soldiers assigned to some kind of Transportation unit, and the number of these is fairly small. When I asked for a volunteer from one of the four guys in the office to play chauffeur for a month, all four jumped for the chance. In the end, I let them decide to rotate the duty day-to-day, so all of them got the chance to head down to the motor pool, flash some orders and check out a jeep. I suspect that each of them drove more rapidly and perhaps a little less safely on the way to pick me up and on the way home after dropping me off than then did while I was in the jeep. (Even though I told them that I, too, hadn't driven a vehicle in a while. In fact, very few officers were allowed to drive while incountry.)

Camp Edwards is quite new; no quonset huts here. It was named after Medal of Honor recipient Junior D. Edwards (1926–1951)- a soldier in the United States Army during the Korean War. He posthumously received the Medal of Honor for his actions on January 2, 1951, during the First Battle of Wonju. (NOTE from 2022: Camp Edwards was closed in 2004 and its equipment was moved to Camp Casey. Following its closure, the land was purchased by Ewha Womans University.)

This is the Consolidated Open Mess at Camp Edwards. (The camp is not big enough to have a separate Open Mess for officers and enlisted.)

This is the HQ building at Camp Edwards. The Finance Office occupied this side of the second floor, and our quarters were quite a change from the quonset huts of Camp Howze.

At left is the entrance to the office of the Deputy Finance Officer- my own little kingdom.

Here is the area where my four pay specialists work. It seems calm now, but on paydays (I will only see three of them here at Edwards) it is very hectic.

Rice: The Staple Crop of Korea

The cycle of life here in Korea revolves around rice- the most common crop grown in this part of the country. The life of the average rural Korean rises and falls with the quality of the crop. And the work most rural Koreans perform is tied to this crop; it is all hands on deck to get it planted, keep it growing properly, and harvest it.

The objective now, in mid-spring, is to get the rice planted. This involves a few steps. First, the clumps of rice stems left over from last fall's harvest have to be pulled up. Here in Korea, farmers can harvest quite a few rice seedlings from these clumps (although this practice is disappearing with the introduction of cheaper seedlings produced in huge quantities). Once the farmers have extracted as many seedlings as they can from the clumps, the paddies are plowed and the old growth returned to the soil.

Here is the rice being planted for the new growing season. Mechanization has not yet been introduced widely in Korea; because of this, planting rice is tedious, back-breaking work. This young farmer has a lot of work ahead of him, depending on how many paddies he is responsible for.

Rice paddies do not actually have to be flooded. Doing so does not hurt the rice, as it has evolved to grow in wet climates, and can easily grow under water. Rice DOES require a good deal of water for it to grow, however. No, the reason that paddies are flooded is that weeds and other unwanted plants DON'T have the capability of growing under water, so the need for weeding and/or pesticides is much reduced. The flooding also reduces dramatically the damage that vermin can do to the growing plant.

Near Edwards, you can see rice paddies in different stages of preparation. When you see light green, you are looking at seedlings newly planted. At this time of year, darker green plants is last year's crop that has not yet been plowed under.

If you've never seen rice cultivation, I am sure you can find pictures. But, here in Korea, it is done a bit differently:

Actually, when I got up close to the farmer who was plowing, and saw that he's essentially plowing mud, I wondered just how useful mechanization might even be for rice farming, as I couldn't envision the vehicle that could get enough traction in the waterlogged fields to even plow them.

At the Laundromat

Even in a country that is trying to modernize as quickly as Korea is, in the rural areas, things can still be pretty primitive by our standards.

If you have lived in rural America in the first half of this century, perhaps you know what it is like to lack indoor plumbing- plumbing that provides fresh water and plumbing that disposes of waste water. I myself am too young and too fortunate to have ever gone without this modern convenience, but I am sure there are billions of people who have not been so lucky.

Indoor plumbing is scarce in Korea, and it is almost non-existent in the small towns outside of Seoul. Even in Seoul we have seen residents carrying water from communal sources to their homes and businesses. With no easily available source of water, washing is often done outside, in streams and even in irrigation ditches.

This is not the first time I have seen women washing clothes or dishes like this, but it is the first time I've been able to photograph the process. When the rice is being planted, there is a great deal of irrigation, and the result is a constant stream of water flowing through the irrigation ditches that line the road. Here, these women are making use of that water. I can only hope that they are able to rinse the clothes in cleaner water. I never thought I would see clothes washing being done like this (by beating them against rocks) in real life- outside some film or movie that is.

The picture above was the best one I took, but here are a couple more:

At Seoul's Eastgate Market

One afternoon in May, my Korean accountant, Mr. Ko (he stayed at the Class B Office as his family lived right near Camp Howze, even though I understand that he is trying to find a house near Camp Casey so he can work in Main Finance again) and I went into Seoul. Mr. Ko had his own errands to run, but I took advantage of having him along to let him lead me to the Eastgate Market.

Dongdaemun means “Great East Gate” and was the major eastern gate in the wall that surrounded Seoul during the Joseon Dynasty.

When I first saw it, it was in the middle of a relatively large plaza, with one of Seoul's major streets still going through it (although the 4-lane street had to narrow to make it through). All around the East Gate was a rabbit warren of close-together streets and alleys; together these were referred to as the Eastgate Market. (Two other such markets had grown up around two of the other five main city gates.

Note from 2022: I tried to find a picture of the East Gate circa 1971 for inclusion here, as I did not take one on the day I visited the market. I could not find any from just that time period; they were either all much older or taken in the present day. I might comment that today the Gate itself is marooned in the middle of a busy roundabout looking somewhat forlorn, no longer gatekeeper to a city which is grown way beyond its original boundaries.

Still surrounding the gate is what is now known as Dongdaemun Market, but it is far in appearance (and content) from the chockablock little stores, street stands, food stalls, and small leantos selling every manner of food, clothing, and small housewares. No, today the market is actually comprised of more than 25 shopping malls, mainly specialising in retail and wholesale fashion items. Together there are many thousands of shops!

Mr. Ko and I rode into Seoul in a kimchi cab; of course Sammy could converse with the driver, get the "Korean rate" for us, and get us dropped off near Eastgate Market (where Mr. Ko's errands were nearby).

In return, I asked Sammy if I could get him some lunch, and when he agreed he picked out this typical upscale Korean restaurant which was just a block or so from the East Gate itself.

In these restaurants, some of the menu items, like what Sammy and I had for lunch, means that the waitress brings a little cooker to the table so you can cook your own strips of meat and vegetables. Bulgogi is the name of the dish. You can see some of the upscale patrons, too. The restaurant and the food were quite good, and buying myself and Sammy a pretty nice lunch only set me back a few bucks- about 1100 Won.

Sammy and I parted ways after lunch, and I went out to explore Eastgate Market. It was like a bigger version of the quaint, crowded side streets that I always enjoy exploring on my trips into Seoul, and I took a number of pictures during my afternoon wanderings. Here they are, with the explanations I wrote at the time:

These shots were taken in the Eastgate Market, where a multitude of stalls sell a great many things- cloth and food among them.

Much different than the fabric department at Belk's, but the purpose is the same. Didn't see any patterns, though.

The variety of the fabrics was pretty amazing, I thought. It made me wonder where all the fabric is actually made, and I should have tried to find a storekeeper who spoke English so I could ask.

This is an outdoor buffet, but the food is all prepared for taking home; I didn't see anyone actually eating here. Trust me when I tell you that it all looked and smelled delicious.

This display of fish (especially the shrimp, which I love) was enticing.

Walking around here made me wish two things. First, that I had not already had lunch. And second that I didn't have a nearby apartment with kitchen facilities so I could take some of the fresh food home and prepare it.

Welcome to Spring

I've taken pictures in Korea to introduce Fall and Winter, so here is your introduction to Spring. My guess is that these are pear trees.

The Seoul-Pusan Expressway

On my last "money run" to Seoul, all we were doing was to cash a check for some MPC and some Won for the office, so on the way down to Seoul we were not carrying cash. We also didn't have an escort this time. So my cashier, B.C., who was driving the Jeep, and I took an opportunity to drive past Yongsan and across the Han River so see what the much-ballyhooed new expressway to Pusan looked like. We had to do some investigation to find just how to get to the new highway, but eventually found the right bridge over the Han River to take us to where the expressway begins.

The expressway to Pusan has been completed and open for about a year, and is South Korea's first (and most important) expressway highway project. It is unabashedly based on the Interstate Highways in the United States, and is prominently feature in advertisements touting South Korea's advancement (perhaps only to irritate North Korea).

Note from 2022:
Here is another situation in which the resources available to me at the time I am creating this album page don't in any way reflect the situation of a half-century ago. No one, for example, is going to go to the trouble now of creating a ma of the highway system of Korea as it was in 1971.

But I can do a good approximation if you look at the map at left. On it, I have marked the route of the Seoul-Pusan expressway in red, so I can point out to you that almost none of the other major highways (many of them also limited-access, Interstate-style expressways) marked on that map in green even existed in 1971.

But then I can make the point yet again that South Korea is today a far different country than it was in 1971. Even when I was there, modernization was beginning in earnest. But still, as the pictures on the pages from the last two years indicate, South Korea is just beginning to emerge from what we might call its "Third World" status. It is just beginning to embark on its march to the industrial powerhouse that it is today. Could I have ever imagined, for example, that Korean musical groups would eventually be among the world's most popular? Could I have imagined that the company whose name I had only seen on a few shipping containers now and again, would leverage its position as a supplier of the equipment used during the Korean War and become a global mega-corporation, and, I might point out, sell more cars in the world (including the last three that I have owned) than most Japanese car makers?

No, while Japan was a postwar success story already by the time I went to Korea, in the years since my tour there I think that South Korea has advanced more and advanced faster and has sustained that advance longer than any other country on the planet. As I may already have mentioned, I returned to Seoul in 2018 and found it barely recognizable. Only when we got to the DMZ did we see anything even vaguely reminiscent of the area around Camp Howze. The country has been transformed, and the Seoul-Pusan Expressway was just one of the earliest opening salvos in that transformation.

The Seoul-Pusan Expressway

We found the beginning of the expressway with little problem. Unlike what you might have expected, had this been a highway in the United States, there was minimal signage directing us to its beginning, and certainly the infrastructure of roads and streets leading up to it and funneling traffic onto it was minimal. In fact, so was the traffic ON it. But I think this is because the highway was not built to alleviate traffic congestion, but rather to anticipate it.

The Gyeongbu Expressway (we did not know the highway's official name and just called it what all the other Americans did) was the second expressway built in this country. (I confess that I do not know what the first one was) It will become, however, the most heavily travelled expressway in South Korea, connecting Seoul to Suwon, Daejeon, Gumi, Daegu, and Busan. I think the thing that impressed me the most was just how much one could easily imagine that one was driving through North Carolina or Indiana on this highway; right down to the billboards it looked and felt exactly as if we were back in the States.

Another note from 2022:
At about the turn of the millennium, place names the world over underwent a change. For centuries, an Anglo-centric Romanization of place names has been in place. Peking, Bombay, and Pusan are all examples of this Romanization, which was most prevalent in the Far East and Asia. Today, with the revision of so many place names to more closely reflect the actual spelling and pronunciation of these places in their native languages, we commonly see Beijing, Mumbai, and Busan instead. And these are just three examples out of many thousands. Indeed, the town up the road from Howze, which was Bong-il Chen when I was there, is now Bongilcheon.

Anyway, in case you are interested, here is the construction history: It began in February 1968 at the behest of South Korean President Park Chung-hee. The Seoul-Suwon and Suwon-Osan segments opened to traffic in December of that same year. The segmetns from Osan to Cheonan, Cheonan to Daejeon, and Pusan to Daegu all opened in 1969. The last segment, the mountainous Daejeon to Daegu segment, opened in early 1970, completing South Korea's first long-distance limited access expressway.

This expressway was eventually given the route number 1, signifying its role as South Korea's most important expressway. The entire length from Seoul to Busan is 416 kilometers (258 mi).

I don't recall seeing any speed limit signs, but I understand that the posted speed limit is currently 100 kilometers per hour (62 mph), and is today enforced primarily by speed cameras. But we didn't see any Highway Patrol, either, when we drove five miles down the highway and back.

There were two oddities, however, both of which are seen in the picture at left.

One was that while almost all US Interstate Highways are fenced (that is, you can't simply walk up to and/or across them without climbing at least a low fence, probably more to keep animals off than people), there were no fences here. You can see that the people living along the highway could walk right up onto it. Maybe when cars become a more prevalent item owned by rural people, Korea will recognize that the "limited access" quality will be lost if folks can just drive their cars off the road and right up to their dwellings.

The other oddity was the existence of curbs. I don't know if the Korean designers just carried the idea of curbs from city streets to the expressway, but I think they will realize eventually that curbs might actually become a safety issue. Imagine losing control of your vehicle and going off the pavement; going over a curb could easily send you airborne. In the States, we have broad shoulders and usually embankments, which are much less likely to exacerbate the effects of a potential collision, tire blowout, or car breakdown.

Korea Scenes

I'll end this page- the last one devoted to South Korea itself- with some pictures I took before my second trip to Japan (which was the last event of my sojourn in-country). There is not much that ties these pictures together, but they are little vignettes of Korea in the late spring and early summer.

Along the road from Howze to Casey one day, we passed these Korean workers who were, apparently, working on a new bridge.

In the States, we would be using much more heavy machinery, although, if it were a state project, probably the same number of workers would be present but with most of them standing around supervising or watching!

The mountains between Howze and Seoul are starting to green up, although it may be hard to see in this photo. I was using my long lens, but didn't have the light setting correct, so the picture is not very bright.

Over at Camp Casey, there is a section of the facility that is nestled up against a couple of small hills, and from there there are some nice views of Tongduchon. Oddly, this was the only church I recall seeing in Korea, and I found it unusual that it was out in a rural area.

The rice has all been planted now, and so the landscape will get steadily greener as the summer gets going.

On the way into Seoul on my last excursion there, this is typical of the Korean countryside.

And on that last trip to Seoul, a typical street scene- and a new overhead highway.

This page contains my last pictures taken in Korea. I have about thirty days left in-country, but some of that will be taken up by my second trip to Japan- coming up next.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	June 11, 1971: My Second Trip to Japan
	May 1, 1971: A Visit to Namsan Mountain in Seoul
	Return to the Index for 1971