Korean Buddhist Temple

Summary 5

Anna Kim 2015461011

Buddhist Temples

Korea must be proud of its cultural heritage that allures not only native people but also foreigners, especially, those, who are from Western countries. Foreigners come to Korea to find out answers on their questions: What Asia means to them or what is Korea. Korea attracts tourists being a developed country with fascinating shops, good service, health industry and entertainment as well as beauty and harmony of nature, mountains, festivals, cherry blossom and other.

After reading Uri Kaplan text I want to try Temple stay and experience how monks live in a temple. Even if now Korea do not have an official religion, 22% the majority of population believes in Buddhism and 18% in Christianity (still

However, recently, there is an opposite tendency of being more original though the process of development. Asian countries emphasize their own specific characteristics in order to look unique. The same tendency is noticeable with Korean Buddhist temples. I think that now it is a period of self-expression values (as well as according to Inglehart theory ) and this also impacted Korean government in attempts to express and emphasize on cultural heritage as Buddhist

I did not participated in Temple stay but suppose that tourists can learn a lot of culture by trying to do by themselves. One year ago I participated in Korean village stay program in Ansan, where I learned how to make Tubu (tofu) and sing Korean traditional songs (phansory). In the result, I experienced many cultural activities that I am not able to learn during ordinary days living in the capital. In Seoul we can see artifacts in Museum and read how to do Korean traditional food, go to hagwon to learn calligraphy or sing phansory in professional way but it is much interesting to learn and experience it just for a while outside the city in a specific and easy-going