Remembering the Deceased Koreans and Nepalis on Gurja Himal

The fatal accident on Gurja Himal in the western Nepal last October has still very powerfully lingered on the community of Korean mountaineers.  The lost is more than a disaster of sorrow but still a passerby that is unaccountable and beyond grasp.  Kim Chang-ho, the leader of the expedition, was such a person with a huge role in them: an active climber with an unquestionable top carrier, mountaineer with an alternative goal in his head, explorer-researcher in his own foot and eyes, philosopher of nature-loving and reflections, and man of ethics open to the future.  Korean friends lost track of a star that was believed to lead them to the next decades of Korean tradition of mountaineering.  

Having said that, no other life lost in the team is less significant than Chang-ho at all.  To mention a few notes on each of them could be a starting point we may pay a deserved respect to all deceased friends on mountains like them.  As one of close friends of Chang-ho, I also acquainted with most of the dead Koreans and Nepalis on Gurja Himal.  The deceased Koreans were Kim Chang-ho (49, Seoul University Alpine Club), Yoo Young-jik (51, Corean Alpine Club), Lee Jae-hun (24, Pukyong National University Alpine Club), Jeong Joon-mo (54, Corean Alpine Club), and Rim Il-jin (49, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Alpine Club). Those Nepalis were Chhiring Bhote (31, Sankhuwasabha), Lakpa Sangbu Bhote (23, Sankhuwasabha), Phurbu Bhote (22, Sankhuwasabha), and Natra Bahadur Chatel (29, Myagdi). 

Kim Chang-ho

He was known in some media as "the fastest person summitting all fourteen eight thousand meter peaks." Yes, he did it in seven years, ten months, and six days, about a month shorter than Jerzy Kukuczka nearly thirty years ago. Also he did it without using supplemental oxygen.  But most of his climbs on the giants, relying on the series of expedition organized by the alpine federation of the City of Pusan, was to him, in my view, a necessary step for his real achievements that followed and would follow.  The list of his climbs in this side is below: 

• First ascent: Batura 2 (7762m, 2008), Himjung (7092m, 2012)
• First ascent, solo: Dehli Sang Sar (6225m), Atar Kor (6189m), Haiz Kor (6105m), Bakma Brakk (6150m), all in Pakistan, 2003.
• New route: Gangapurna (7455m, 2016), Gangapurna West (7140m, 2016), Dharamsura (6446m, 2017), Papsura (6451m, 2017), Nanga Parbat (Variation of Messner route, 2005)

Chang-ho was much more than a best-talented mountaineer.  He was an Himalayan explorer, geographical researcher, mountaineering expert, climbing compiler, and expedition leader.  I cannot even attempt here to summarize what kinds of person he was and to what extent his legacy extends in mountaineering, which I will in a separate article.  

Kim Chang-ho, June 2013. Photo by the author.

Yoo Young-jik

The climb to Gurja Himal had for awhile been planned as a duo of Chang-ho and Young-jik, though the two had never been together in Himalaya before this expedition.  Young-jik, free-minded climbing enthusiast, therefore lacking a good, firm social connection with the mainstream climbing circles in the country, had a handful of Himalayan experiences, the most recent being a new-route attempt on the east face of Ama Dablam (6812m) in 2013. 

Yoo Young-jik. Photo from the Gurja Himal expedition brochure.

 

Lee Jae-hun

Jae-hun was still a university student, former presidents for the Pusan Student Alpine Federation and for Pukyong University Alpine Club.  For three times he had participated in a Himalayan mountaineering expedition.  In 2017 he climbed Dharamsura in India with Chang-ho.  At the last moment he joined the Gurja Himal expedition.

Lee Jae-hun. Photo from the Gurja Himal expedition brochure.

Rim Il-jin

Il-jin was a documentary producer and cameraman for the expedition.  In 2014, as a mountaineer himself he led a first-ascent expedition to Lugula in Nepal.  He participated in a number of Himalayan expeditions and took in his camera a series of rare spectacles of high-altitude climbing, including the South Col of Mt. Everest.  Il-jin struggled hard on the ethical approach of mountaineering as well as his own identity as a filmmaker, asking questions such as "Who am I sucking up those who are in the fabled name of alpinism struggling between heroism and climbing authenticity?"

Lim Il-jin at a Sherpa house in northern Sankhuwasabha, northeastern Nepal, during his filming trip in August, 2013. Photo by the author.

Jeong Joon-mo

A full-time mountaineer in the 1980s, Joon-mo had climbed Nanda Devi and Annapurna 4.  Though retired from active climbing, and instead a successful businessman, he had been still involved in mountaineering administration by serving as one of the managers for Corean Alpine Club (one of the two nationwide climbing and mountaineering association).  At the time of the accident he happened to be at the base camp during a short visit in order to encourage the climbing members. 

Jeong Joon-mo (second to the right) is confirming his sponsorship for Il-jin's film project of the Gurja Himal expedition, entitled "Hidden Valley." September 15, 2018. Photo by Corean Alpine Club.

Chhiring Bhote

Chhiring and Chang-ho had long been a real partner: for almost all of Chang-ho's Himalayan expeditions, as well as for many other Korean Himalayan expeditions and trekking groups, Chhiring was hired as a cook.  He was fluent in Korean but also well versed in most sorts of cultural custom among Koreans.  Being a Bhote, a minority ethnicity, however, he had not been able to be promoted to a more lucrative position such as climbing guide.  When he was a child, he lost his parents and so was raised by his aunt.  Chhiring had a son and a daughter, both attending schools in Kathmandu.

Chhiring Bhote. At the Amphu 1 base camp, Khumbu, Nepal. September 2013. Photo by the author.

Lakpa Sangbu Bhote

The aunt who took care of Chhiring had a daughter and a son, and he was Sangbu.  Sangbu had little experience in participating in Himalayan expedition, because tourism had not been in the range of his potential career.  He was well educated, graceful in all personal and social manners.  Sangbu joined the expedition as a kitchen helper.

Lakpa Sangbu Bhote with the author (right). In Gola, northern Sankhawasabha. December 2013.

Chhiriting's aunt and Sangbu's mother at her home in Parang, near Hongguong, northern Sankhuwasabha. December 2013. Photo by the author.

Bhote village Hongguong, northern Sankhuwasabha. December 2013. Photo by the author.

Phurbu Bhote

A distant cousin of Chhiring and Sangbu, participated as a kitchen helper.  Phurbu had a number of experiences working in expedition kitchen with Chhiring.  Phurbu was an honest, diligent person, a kind of truth in such the personality was loved so much by many expedition members.

 

Phurbu Bhote. At the Amphu 1 base camp, Khumbu, Nepal. September 2013. Photo by the author.

Natra Bahadur Chantel

Little is known about who he was.  He was apparently hired at Darbang, the town at the end of the road, to not only carry the luggage of but also guide Joon-mo to the base camp.  Also, I can therefore imagine that Natra was a member of the small ethnic group Chantel, the most of whom reside around Myagdi and Bhaglung districts -- Myagdi is the region where Gurja Himal is located.  To investigate the region Chang-ho visited before this expedition Gurja Khani (2620m), the nearest village to the base camp of Gurja Himal.  Chang-ho told me that culture and language of the villagers was quite distinctive.  I guess they are Chantels.  The local guide-porter Natra was perhaps from Gurja Khani.

Everest expedition price. part 1

There is a widespread rumor in the Western media and among pundits that states some Nepali expedition operators offer poorer services with less experienced Sherpa guides, by paying less salary to them, thus falling clients into more unsafe conditions (for example, see Mark Horrell's recent article).  This kind of claims is simply a speculation, with no down-to-earth factual basis but only unguided suspects and criticisms.

Instead, those western operators such as Adventure Consultants, Himex, IMG, Alpine Ascents, Altitude Junkies, etc. which once occupied a major portion of over-8,000-meter-peaks expedition industry, have recently experienced a shortage of experienced Sherpa guides.  They are known to charge clients between 40,000 and 65,000 USD for Everest.  This cost range is generally higher than those of Seven Summit Treks, 14 Peaks Club, Pioneer Adventure Treks, and others operated by Sherpa owners.  These Sherpa-owned operators charge between 30,000 and 40,000 USD.

Why the price difference?  Pasang Sherpa, the managing director of Pioneer Adventure Treks, told me: "Those old agencies have to charge more expensively because they have Western organizers on top of Nepali organizers. The Western organizers 'eat' money, giving less money to Nepali organizers. Moreover, while they talk to clients they don't work. It's Sherpas who work on the mountain."

With Pasang Sherpas (right) in front of his office in Kathmandu

"Why on earth does the money have to travel to the Westerners?" Pasang reasoned.

The claim that those Nepali (Sherpa) owned organizers have less experienced Sherpas with minimum wage is also refuted.  Laughing off to this question of mine, Mingma Sherpa, the directing manager of Seven Summit Treks -- the expedition organizer that has sent the largest groups to Everest since 2013 till this day -- said: "We are paying between 1500 and 8000 USD to my climbing Sherpas on Everest, depending on their performance on the mountain.  If other agencies pay more money, then why have they, the most experienced among other Sherpas, worked with us?  How could we have held them to work with us?"

Transregionalism, Hierarchy, and Belonging Dynamics in Himalayan Mountain Tourism

A few days ago I have participated in the Annual Kathmandu Conference on Nepal and the Himalaya, Shanker Hotel, Kathmandu, July 25-27, where I presented my paper titled "Transregionalism, Hierarchy, and Belonging Dynamics in Himalayan Mountain Tourism."  The paper's abstract can be found here from the conference website.  The caveat of my paper is on three observations on the industry of Himalayan mountain tourism: 1) Kathmandu-centered transregionalism, 2) industrial hierarchy and Sherpa monopoly, and 3) Sherpa identity politics. 

The discussant of the panel, Stefanie Lotter from SOAS University of London, commented on my paper with generous complements, which considered my positionality of being a non-Western, mountaineering, and multilingual anthropologist highly valuable regarding the fieldwork and overall perspective.  I admit that my peculiar position of mountaineer-cum-researcher has allowed me to be critical of the two popular views widespread not only among the Western public but also among the scholars.

The first is the perspective of Himalayan mountain tourism as a form of encounter between Nepal and the West or between the Sherpa and the Westerners, and this is simply false.  Foreign tourists cannot be generally called the "westerners."  In our conversation, Thaneswar Guragai, a Kathmandu-based researcher and compiler for 8000ers.com and Himalayan Database, agreed with my observation that non-western mountaineers are now at least about 40% of all non-Nepali climbers on Himalayan peaks.

The second false view on Himalayan mountain tourism is the assumption that social scientific study about mountaineering occupies a morally vantage point as opposed to mountaineering.  According to this view, mountaineering is something deemed to be criticized by social scientists.  But from my point of view, both mountaineering and anthropological research are touristic and can occur out of a romantic view of human. Mountaineering, furthermore, may strive for a "better" life of humanity and thus has a potential to provide something good to human.

Dying Differently: Sherpa and Korean Mountaineers on Everest

My recent article on Sherpa and Korean Everest climbers has been published in the minnesota review.  The paper can be reached here.  In the article, I have argued that death is a precondition for mountaineering, although ways mountaineers experience death may differ widely.  The following is the abstract of the paper:

• A Sherpa laughed off his colleague’s death, stunning a Korean teammate on Mt. Everest. In the face of their friends’ deaths, Korean and Sherpa mountaineers behave quite distinctively from each other. Based on anthropological research on Sherpa and Korean mountaineers on Himalayan peaks, this essay makes a case revealing a cross-cultural and prepsychological aspect of mountaineering that upholds death as a principal component of the sport. A combination of highlander lifestyle, quasi-matriarchy, Tantrist ontology, and neocolonial relationship has historically shaped the reciprocal processes of Sherpas’ success in the industry of Himalayan mountain tourism and their characteristic joviality, which discounts the negative side of the sport. In contrast, Korean mountaineers, being reticent and meditative with respect to mountaineering accidents, exhibit a longstanding tradition of Taoist idealism, Buddhist dualism, and Confucian hierarchy as the set of norms and values they bring to the highest mountain peaks.

This article is supposed to be read as a philosophical piece for an insight over (mountain) climbing, rather than a social-scientific and historical study.  I have employed a brief anthropological analysis using language of jargon in order to stress out the production of different cultural reactions to mountain experiences.

Six years have passed since the fieldwork, and the main idea of the contrast made between the Sherpas and the Koreans in the paper seems to me still valid in general.  However, I must admit that in the paper there are things unsaid yet maybe significant for a more realistic understanding of each group's perception of climbing and death.  These include, among many others, fear and antagonism against death and risks publicly shared by those and other Sherpas and Koreans.

It should also be entertained that "mountaineering" has never been a "vocation" for anyone in any cultural group.  It might be the case that at some points in mountaineering a mountaineer negotiates climbing problems as if a matter of life and death; however, I can't imagine anyone with some experiences in serious mountaineering who practically takes his/her life nothing but that of a mountaineer.  They know they have alternative options than mountaineering for their future life; they have family; they have things to take care of back home.  In short, when they negotiate in any stage of mountaineering, their choice is made first of all between mountaineering and not mountaineering rather than between life and death.  This aspect of a mountaineer-as-a-whole-person has been ignored so frequently.

What Makes Americans American: Yellowstone National Park

For five days, Su and I drove to and from Yellowstone National Park.  It is a 1,000-mile trip from Southern California.  On the way we stopped by Zion National Park for two days, so indeed we spent just one full day at the America's first National Park.  A few things struck me during the trip.

National park experience is an American way of expressing a widespread longing to get away from the sameness of everyday and to recapture the relation to the planet.  The biggest thing which seems to me to make American National Park experience distinct and even eccentric is that we "drove" through the park: the concept of National Park in the US revolves around driving, another key component of most Americans' individuated lifestyle.  Essentially the entity you tour with through the landscape is defined by a vehicle you drive.  You drive, park, take photos, read descriptions in panels, ponder on geologies, get on the car, and drive to the next destination as the road leads.  You view the scenery from your car, or even eat and sleep in the car.  Some national parks have tram or shuttle bus systems, where their landscape hardly allows enough space for parking lots.

wild animals (bison) seen from the car window at the Yellowstone. The gap created between human and the wild felt so wide.

William Zinsser, the author of American Places: A Writer's Pilgrimage to 15 of This Country's Most Visited and Cherished Sites (1992), suspects that the reason why so many Americans are eager to visit the Yellowstone has something to do with "ownership," especially "family possession."  You, as a child, make a visit with your parents; by yourself becoming a parent you lead the family visit.  The renter-car manager also told me that he visited the Yellowstone when about 10 years old.  As George Greenia (2014) calls, the national park visit seems to have become an American cultural pilgrimage.

Zinsser also interestingly mentions about the history of the park.  Nathaniel P. Langford in the Washburn Expedition of 1870 to the soon-to-be national park wrote about "feelings of mingled awe and terror" which recalled him his "entire dependence upon that Almighty Power who had wrought these wonders."  Langford's talk in Washington, D.C. inspired politicians to create a "Yellowstone National Park," leading to, on March 1, 1872, President Grant to sign the first bill setting aside wild lands "for the benefit and enjoyment of the people" under the management of the federal government.

hundreds of people are waiting for the "faithful" Old Faith to spring up.

It is also interesting to see the early connection with the military service at the park management.  Before the creation of the National Park Service in 1916, for about 30 years the army managed the Yellowstone and protected it against poachers and mischievous tourists.  The soldiers later quit the army and served under the Park Service as lifelong rangers.  The pseudo-militarization of park service and sheriff-styled ranger service characteristic to the American national park system seem to have originated from this early connection. 

Yet Zinsser, and the bulletin of Yellowstone National Park as well, does not mention the thousands years of Indian residence in the area.  For the several decades since the inception, the Park had deliberately ignored and misinformed the presence of American Indian tribes inside the park.  The killing of several dozens of American Indians in the process of making the park has long been ignored.  The system of National Park, in the US and around the world, is still relying on the idea that a non-human place demands superintendence from human forces in order to remain intact and "natural."  

The idea of National Park in the US is therefore ironic: a human-created non-human area to be enjoyed under voyeuristic eyes from cars.  

님 웨일즈의 <아리랑>

아리랑 (The Song of Ariran, 1940, 일어판 <아리랑의 노래>, 한국어판 1984년 동녘 1판, 1992년 개정1판, 1993년 개정2판 발행. 조우화 역)

뜨겁고 처절하면서도 명철한 철학에 바탕을 둔 김산의 생애를 1인칭 시점으로 흥미진진하게 그린 저작이다. 김산의 세계관과 인간관의 일부를 적어본다.

이 책은 헬렌 포스터 스노우(필명: 님 웨일즈, 1907~1997)가 중국에서 활동한 조선인 공산주의 혁명가 장지락(1905~1938, 이하 책에서 사용된 이름 김산)을 몇 차례에 걸쳐 인터뷰하고 쓴 책이다. 1937년 김산이 32세일 때 역시 30세에 불과한 작가 사이에 우연한 만남이 이루어지고 이는 인터뷰와 저작으로 이어진다. 

혁명가의 눈으로 본 1930년대 동북아 정세와 혁명가의 삶과 인간관계를 그리고 있다. 집요하고 활발하게 진행된 항일투쟁은 전반적인 배경을 형성한다. 한 예로 1935년에만 조선에 주둔한 총 22만에 달하는 일본 경찰병력이 체포한 조선인 항일운동가들은 20만 명을 넘었다. 그만큼 30년대 조선은 "일본인의 심장을 겨냥하고 있는 비수"(304쪽)였던 것이다.

김산의 독특한 성격은 책 전반에 강렬하게 흐른다. 김산은 스스로도 "용서를 모르는 단호한 성격의 소유자"라는 것을 알고 있었다. 주변으로부터 로베스피에르라고 불리기도 하였고 그래서 정적도 많고 모함도 받았다. 결국 인터뷰가 있었던 바로 다음 해 반혁명, 간첩 혐의로 동료 공산주의자들에게 처형당하고 만다.

책의 제목 '아리랑'은 김산에게 "죽음과 패배의 노래"(232쪽)다. 일본의 감옥에 갇힌 당시 와세다대학 출신의 일본 사복형사가 인터내셔널가를 불러달라고 요청하자 김산은 거절하며 아리랑을 부른다. "승리의 노래"를 부를 수 없다는 이유다. 그가 "부를 수 있는 오직 하나밖에 없"으며 이는 아리랑이었다. 

노래 아리랑이 김산에게만 의미가 있었던 것은 물론 아니다. 천여 명의 조선인 독립운동가들이 처형된 신의주에 있는 감옥에서 김산은 이전 수감자들이 벽에 손톱과 수갑으로 써 놓은 낙서들을 읽는다. 군데 군데에서 아리랑 가사도 많이 있었다.

이런 죽음과 패배를 숱하게 몸으로 겪으며 김산은 스스로에게 국가에 대응할 수 있는 엄청난 힘이 있다는 것을 배웠다고 한다. "국가와 나는 대등" (232쪽) 하다고까지 주장한다.

가장 큰 사상가를 꼽으라면 마르크스와 톨스토이다. 김산은 마르크스주의에 정통한 혁명가, 교사, 저술가로서 십여 년의 처절한 활동 동안 다음과 같은 결론을 내린다.

중요한 것은 단 하나뿐이라는 사실을 나는 배웠다. 민중과의 계급관계를 유지하는 것. 왜냐하면 민중의 의지는 역사의 의지이기 때문이다. 이것은 쉬운 일이 아니다. 민중은 깊고 어두우며 행동에 들어가기 전까지는 단 한 마디도 말을 하지 않기 때문이다. 그대는 소근거리는 소리와 침묵의 웅변에 귀를 기울여야 한다. 개개인과 집단들은 큰소리로 고함을 지른다. 그리하여 그 때문에 혼란에 빠지기 쉽다. 그러나 진실은 아주 작은 목소리로 이야기되는 것이지 큰소리로 이야기되는 것이 아니다. 하지만 민중들이 이 작은 목소리를 들을 때, 그들은 손에 총을 잡는다. 마을 노파 한 사람의 긴박한 속삭임만으로도 충분하다. (296쪽)

30세가 되었던 어느 날, 아주 똑똑한 20대 중국 여성 공산당원과 토론하던 도중 그는 스스로가 무척 늙었다는 것을 발견했다. "인간정신의 성장에는 한계가 있는 것 같다. 어느 일정한 지점까지 가면 인간정신의 성장은 정지하고 그 이상 신장되지 않으며, 더 이상 새로운 사실을 파악하지 못하고 도리어 이미 옛날이야기인 10월혁명에 대한 향수에 빠져들게 된다." (298쪽) 서글픈 이야기다. 그러나 강렬했던 "10월혁명"의 추억에 견줄 새로운 사건을 스스로의 삶에서는 더 이상 도모하기가 어렵다는 사실을 알아냈을 때 추억으로 회고하려는 것뿐이지 않을까. 즉 성장의 한계는 세상을 알아 나감으로써 어쩔 수 없이 맞이하는 성숙이겠다.

김산의 혁명적 깨닮음은 마르크스보다도 마르크스의 변증론을 전 인류에 대한 인간애로의 성찰로 이끈 톨스토이에게서 더 짙게 묻어나온다. 김산은 중학교 때 처음 톨스토이를 접한 이후 줄곧 톨스토이의 저작들을 품에 간직하며 거의 매일같이 읽고 또 읽었다고 한다. 김산이 이해하는 톨스토이는 "현실을 여러 가지 모순의 충돌이라고 묘사한다." (125쪽) 즉 "작중인물은 언제나 투쟁하고 있으며, 절대로 동의와 해결에 도달하는 법이 없다." (125쪽) 따라서 김산의 톨스토이 이해는 혁명으로 나아간다. "현실의 이 변증법적 사실을 이해하게 되면 명확하게 행동의 길을 택할 수밖에 없다." (125쪽) 이처럼 변해가는 현실이란 자연도 또 자아도 포함된다. 김산은 "변화하는 자연"을 좋아했으며 인간의 본성도 이처럼 변하는 것이며 또 변해야 한다고 봤다.

그렇다면 삶의 진리도 변하는 것인가. "나는 무엇이 선이고 무엇이 악인가, 무엇이 정이고 무엇이 사인가, 무엇이 올바른 것이고 무엇이 잘못인가 하는 것을 논함으로써 사람을 단죄하는 짓을 더 이상 하지 않는다." (299쪽) 1933년 북경의 차디찬 감방 안에서 그는 다짐한다. "타인의 거짓말이나 변절을 절대로 마음에 두지 않겠다"고. "나 자신의 방식으로 하다가 설령 이기지 못한다 하더라도, 내게 그 실패는 명예이고 승리인 것이다."(271쪽) "내가 묻는 것은 무엇이 가치있는 것이고 무엇이 낭비인가, 무엇이 필요하고 무엇이 쓸데없는가, 무엇이 중요하고 무엇이 부차적인가 하는 것이다. 다년간의 마음의 고통과 눈물을 통하여 '오류'가 필수적이며 따라서 선이라는 것을 배웠다. 오류는 인간 발전의 통합적인 일부분이며, 사회변화 과정의 통합적인 일부분인 것이다. ... 사람들은 실험을 통하여 비로소 지혜를 배우는 것이다. ... 비극은 인생의 한 부분이다." (299-300쪽)

김산의 인생관, 인간관은 비관론의 유희다. "나는 불행한 사람들을 좋아한다."(253쪽)고 선언한다. "즐겁고 행복한 사람들이 내게는 멍텅구리처럼 보인다."(253쪽) 아! 이 책을 통틀어 현재 미국에 거주하고 있는 내게 가장 와 닿는 말이었다. 모든 것이 손에 가깝고 편리로 가득차, 삶의 의미와 목적, 질곡과 그를 벗어나 새 하늘을 보려는 소망까지 모든 것에 벽을 쌓아두고, 삶의 의미를 물을 기회조차 박탈당한 세상의 끝이 바로 이곳 미국에 있었다. "그들은 삶의 표면 위를 날아다니고는 있지만 절대로 그 의미는 알지 못하는 것 같다. ... 그들은 인간의 참마음에 가까이 붙어 있는 것이 아니라 멀리 떨어져 있고 고립되어 있다. 아마도 그 때문에 그들이 즐거운 상태로 남아 있을 수 있으리라." (253쪽)

A Rise of Extremism

Extremism is a doubtful concept.  What kind of standpoint does the extremity of so-called extremism arise out of?  Are we not encroaching into an extremism ourselves when we curse someone "extremist"?  This afternoon on campus, an interesting scene attracted many students near the Bell-tower, the symbolic central place.  Two elderly men were delivering public speech condemning "sins" of secularism such as homosexuality and abortion with signboards written, "Why You All Deserve Hell," "Islam = Terrorism, Rape" and so on.  A horde of students sitting in front of them often responded with mocking and laughing.  

Religious extremists were they, liberal extremists the counterparts seemed to be.  The campus newspaper, run by a student editorial board, already opined at the current issue "Don't feed the trolls by the Bell Tower."  "Their words," notes the editorial, "carry very little weight for those who are not religious and do not believe in their brand of hell in the first place."  It seemed so.  The students responding them seemed more interested in how they could ridicule them by finding fault with the speech, sentence to sentence.  

Rather, their speech and presence could, the newspaper continues, help the campus community learn the reality of our society where there are "lunatics ... who have extremely deluded convictions."  It was said "undoubtedly problematic" even though such a speech act is not illegal.

The Op-Ed piece is depicted with a cartoon where a few angry-faced people stand with pickets on a small island named "Island of Ignorance."  I suspect the editorial, not they, as well as most of my fellow liberals, standing on one.

The view states that the speakers as extremists incorrectly represent an "otherwise peaceful and tolerant group of people" who are lay Christians and practicing their religions with good sensitivity.  Really?  Is it that no public evangelism and being quiet outside churches means peace and tolerance?  The identification of hell and Islam--and, for that matter, any religion except Christianity--is by no means extrinsic to most church communities in the US.  Besides, all humans are essentially sinful according to the biblical point of view, so no one without Christian born-again will evade the final judgment and following hell.  The speech act itself is so distinctive in the sense that few Christians attempt evangelism in such a provocative way that may well drive the whole mood of the campus to liminality and punkyard. 

Those who are concerned with the national history and ancestry of religiosity will find the recent feat of relativism in matters of sexuality and immigration hurting the core of their identity.  The extremity of religious extremism sprinkled against the church advocates shot out of the bystanders who make mockery and the editorial harshly sided with none but the campus evangelicals. 

It is also frustrating to read from the paper that it is "improbable that [the speech acts] will actually influence any individual with a conscience and brain on this campus."  From an evangelical perspective, this extreme kind of conveying ideas is one of the most frequently used and highly effective strategies.  I even presume that the speech would potentially have created a place for conversation, understanding, and reconciliation with those who hold different perspectives.  A blunt obstinacy from the side of campus community unfortunately dazzled  off actions that might calm down lateral extremity of any kind.  

Dog Nature Overlaps Human Culture

A black, young dog held back before the makeshift wood bridge over a small-yet-violent stream that severs Yaphu and Walung.  The Sherpas wooed and threw stones, trying to drive him out from attempting to come cross, thinking it was too dangerous to walk on the wet slippery log for the dog and fall into the roaring water below.  The dog, however, was not just brave but agile enough to swiftly run over the bridge.  

"Wa!" We all yelled out.
"Huh? Why? Does he want to follow us?" I asked.
"Yes, he will follow us."
"Shouldn't he come back to Dovtak?"
"No. Now he will follow us up to our village, Walung and stay there."

Walung Sherpas rest at a stream on the way to Dovtak.  A Dovtak dog ran across the flimsy wood bridge the next day.

It was the third and last day of our pilgrimage to the holy cave called "Khambalung" in Dovtak, a three-house Sherpa settlement in Yaphu area, Sankhuwasabha district, northeastern Nepal.  The black dog had been staying around the Dovtak lama's house where the Walung Sherpa visitors stayed during the trip.  The dog, however, seemed to have decided to follow us as we return; indeed, another dog slightly larger than him in the house was hostile to him all along, showing off an exclusive ownership of the dog's niche at the house.  "Is that migration for dogs is just to leave so instantly and with pure ease -- carrying no bags, wallets, food, toys, family, with no good-byes?" I wondered.  "Dogs are doing the same as the Sherpa men sometimes left home without saying anything to their family!"

Dogs are rarely allowed to come in Sherpa houses.

The Dovtak dog (S. Dovtak-kki) indeed followed us until Walung and the very house I stayed.  Unfortunately, there was another female dog with a puppy.  The mom-dog barked harshly against the intruder, yet the visitor dog somehow managed to stay in the vicinity of the house, trying to keep close to the kitchen though behind the mom-dog straining to hold the ownership.  The Sherpa housewife, seeing the dog seemed so hungry after a long day's walk, threw some leftover food (Tormang we brought from the last night's ceremony) which he voraciously ate up.  He did not leave until I left to Kathmandu a few days later.

In Nepal, the way dogs and humans interact with each other in general is characterized by indifference.  Few dogs wave their tails to strangers (while puppies might -- a sign of nurture being over nature).  Sherpa boys often threw stones to wandering dogs who would get shocked and afraid.  Although dogs were found in the yards of many houses one on one, the strong tie between the house owners and the house dog as is common to many other countries seemed lacking in the Walung Sherpa village.

Dogs are taking a good nap in a busy street in Nepal.

I visited again the village several months later.  Wondering whereabouts of the Dovtak dog, I questioned to the house's Sherpa about him.  However, he said villagers killed the dog, motioning cutting the neck with a long knife.
"What?  Why?"
"Because he killed a few chickens."

The unfortunate dog apparently failed to replace the dog that had been previously occupying the household so as to assert his belonging to the household.  His death would have been avoided once the replacement was successful.  In the Sherpa village, the border between house dog and wild dog was not lasting long and often unclear.

Middle Eastern gray wolf (Canis Lupus), known as the ancestor of dog.

Dogs are among the first (or, perhaps the first) domesticated animals at least 10,000 years ago before the introduction of agriculture.  They had been a kind of wolf, staying around hunter-gatherers, scavenging carcasses and participating in human hunting.  Early humans caught some docile animals, while keeling fierce ones before they thrived, to breed and raise a specific kind of descendants leading to the evolution of the dog we see today.  Though the dogs I have seen in Nepal might not be genetically different from those I can joyfully mingle with in Korea or in America, the patterns of ecological adaptation Walung Sherpas have constituted locally and regionally have left the dogs less domesticated, not in the biological sense, emulating the individualistic feature of the highlander Sherpa society.  Nature of dogs in Walung nebulously overlaps nurture that is part of Sherpa culture.

Commencement Speech

Commencement Speech

Four years ago, I stood atop of Mt. Everest, the highest mountain in the world. I climbed the mountain as part of my dissertation research studying about mountain climbing. It was one of the greatest moments in my life. This personal achievement as a researcher and a mountaineer could have been unthinkable if I was not a member of the UCR community. While other universities had no interest in my non-traditional research, only UCR, especially my advisor in anthropology, Dr. Sally Ness, agreed to support and constantly encouraged my intention of studying mountain climbing.

When I returned from my two-year field research in the Himalayas, I found she was seriously sick. She became almost blind and even couldn’t recognize my face. But she still wanted to help me as I set off the long process of writing a dissertation. She let me stop by her place every week to talk about my writing progress. What we shared during the uncertain days and months was hope for the future. Now I am more than happy as she is attending here and clearly seeing me.

It was not only my advisor who shared a community of hope, but also fellow graduate students, undergrad students, and staff members who were all equally significant in my six years at UCR. When I was taking courses, my cohort and I didn’t merely attend classes, but we also collaborated in a number of ways. We gathered at someone’s house, discussed difficult theories all night, and shared food, laughter, and everyday chit chat. As an international student, I couldn’t speak English well during the first couple of years, but they tried to understand what I struggled to say. Personal agonies became collective concerns.

I met one of my undergraduate students at K-Mart near UCR, where he was working as a part-time clerk. Being a student is tough for many people partly due to fast increasing tuition. Tensions arose between students and the administration over tuition hikes. While UCR wasn’t able to keep tuition as low as we would have liked, the administration kept the decision-making process as transparent as possible. Even when we don’t agree, we shared a common ground envisioning a better future for all of us and for the society at large. What we as a community have shown during the past several years is that hope, community, and unity are not something merely written on the wall, but the living principles with which we have lived here and will perform each of our lives in every corner of the world. I believe this is what we call tradition, the tradition of UCR which supported me as I climbed the top of the world. Without having a deeper sense of hope and trust, and so without deeply thinking about your own life and death, for example, you’ll never be able to dare to climb such a high and risky mountain. Being a member of the UCR community is therefore more than a sense of pride. It’s now part of my life, a second nature by which I and you, my fellow alumni, will go through all the uncertain moments that’ll follow in our lives.

June 11, 2016

A Brief History of Korean Mountaineering

For thousands of years, people in the Korean peninsula have lived within mountainous landscape and flourished their culture along with the mountain. In the ancient thought, the mountain was more than an object of veneration but an essential part of their lives. People enjoyed their lives located near the mountain and stream, cultivated moral virtues in nature, and harmonized every aspect of their life in relation to the mountain.
In Confucian tradition, Korean scholars and government officials viewed reaching the top of high mountains including the highest Mt. Baekdu (2,744m), as an achievement to cultivate virtue and learn philosophical knowledge. In an intensifying national opposition in between China and Japan in the 16-17th century, mountain excursions were often sponsored by the government. Geographers published maps based on mountain systems. Two massive expeditions successfully reached the previously untrodden summit of the highest mountain respectively in 1740 and 1764.

In the late 1920s and under the Japanese colonial occupation, a number of Koreans began climbing rocks near Seoul, the capital of the country, with experienced Japanese climbers and British visitors. Because of the political tension, Korean and Japanese climbers somewhat competitively ascended difficult rock peaks and high mountains that offer quite severe climbing conditions.

In the social and political turmoil after the independence of 1945, Corea Alpine Club (CAC) was founded and inaugurated mountaineering events nationwide. Activities in this period were more or less focused on rebuilding national identity and basics of mountaineering. Since the Korean War (1950-1953), the history of mountaineering in South Korea may be said a constant development thus far. In the 1950-60s dozens of university alpine clubs were founded among high and middle class college students, followed by the foundation of Korean Alpine Federation in 1962. The economy had thrived drastically in 1960s, and in 1970s dozens of non-collegiate alpine clubs were founded. Mountaineering in the country was no more an exclusive avocation of a small circles of elite climbers but became a popular sport across the country.

In 1980s, more and more Korean mountaineers turned their eyes to higher mountains in other parts of the world. This was partly because traveling abroad was liberalized. The success of Korean expedition to Mt. Everest in 1977 was acclaimed as a national achievement, sanctioned mountain climbing as a national sport being worth to sponsor and feature on media. In 1980s, all women expeditions ventured high mountains and rock towers abroad. Sheer ice-falls in deeper gorges were firstly ascended. Rock-climbing competition was initiated in 1981, albeit with endless criticisms against its competitive nature.

Mountain tourism for Koreans has been always more than an athletic venture. In 1990s, one third of Korean citizens enjoyed hikes on the mountain at least once a month. More than sixty percent of the land of Korean peninsula is mountainous, yet it seems not sufficient for satiating all the tastes of the mountaineers. They have constructed more than fifty artificial ice-falls every winter for ice climbing, and about two hundred of sport climbing gyms have provided beginners with an appetite of climbing as well as athletes with a place for exercise today. Sport climbing became a popular sport in this period. Backed upon this popularization of mountain culture in a modern sense, more and more Korean mountaineers continued climbing to Himalayan mountains and other peaks abroad. This trend has continued to this day, as for example, currently six Koreans have completed climbing fourteen eight-thousand meter peaks. Climbing techniques and styles have also been variegated, such that Koreans climb ice-falls solo or the Himalayas in the minimalist alpine-style. In tandem with all this practical development, scholars, writers, critics, and government officials have extensively engaged in flourishing mountain culture of the country through magazines, monographs, TV programs, exhibitions and other cultural programs. (Published in the brochure of the 2015 UIAA General Assembly Seoul, Korea)

Insu-bong near Seoul. Because of its proximity, Insu-bong has played a major role in the recent development of modern climbing and mountaineering in Korea throughout the twentieth century.

Langtang Wanderers 2014

Langtang Valley, north of Kathmandu in Nepal, has been one of the most popular spots for mountaineers as well as lay nature-lovers in the world due to its relative proximity.  But this has never meant that the peaks might have lost their glimmers to climbers, including the late Slovenian Tomaž Humar, who died on the precipitous South Face of the highest Langtang Lirung in 2009, was unescapably attracted to the marvelous peak in the midway of the area.  They enticed too me (Oh Young-Hoon) and Kim Jin-Seok, letting us to plan dare to climb four lower peaks among a handful number of those closer to the center of the Valley within a period of twenty days in January, 2014.  They were: Gangja La Peak (5,652m), Naya Kanga (5,863m), Yubra (6,264m) and Langshisa Ri (6,427m).

Langtang National Park (in Korean)

Three peaks (names in red) of Langtang National Park

Gangja La Peak, commonly called so by the villagers yet without an official name, has an easy slope on its east side (PD for the entire ascent) up to its top where we climbed for acclimatization.  Its northern side, where a large glacial plain formed the way, let us to camp on its foot (5,130m) before trudging deep snow on the glacier.

After spending two nights at Base Camp where the HMG-Finn map refers to as (Naya Kanga’s) “Low Camp” on 4,300m, we crawled up directly below the Northeast Face of Naya Kanga, the second peak as we planned, through what we call “Hom-Thong” (meaning gutter in Korean), a large chimney shaped against rock and glacier walls, and camped the night up on the glacier (5,230m).

Before and after our journey, meanwhile, we found this peak's naming somewhat controversial.  Firstly, Nepalese government has announced the peak’s name ‘Kangja Chuli’ with the height 5,844m and endorsed NMA (Nepal Mountaineering Association) to manage it.  NMA, in turn, named the peak Naya Kanga as to which now popularly referred.  However, the plotting of the latitude and longitude to designation by the institutions points out a spot about five kilometers to its west, and this is the point where the popular HMG-Finn map that you can easily buy from a Thamel bookshop marks Naya Kanga.  Also, it names the peak that we aimed “Urking Kanggari.”  The so-called Schneider map, relatively more legitimate in mountaineering world, notes our peak Naya Kanga, describing the whole ridge of the peak as “Urgen Kangri.”  We have not been sure still of which to be correct, although Lindsay Griffin, the American Alpine Journal editor believed the latter.

We climbed the central couloir of the face before joining the 400m east-west snow ridge that led us to the top (D).  The normal route on this peak heads up toward the Gangja La before traversing west across the large glacial terrace on which we camped, to climb a little gully onto the crest of the northeast ridge, which is then followed to the summit (PD+/AD-), and this is the route we climbed down.

Ganja-la Peak through the east ridge

"Naya Kanga" or "Uriking Kangri" (?) through the central rib of northeast face route - we named it "evergreen"

Jin-Seok on top of the central rib of the northeast face of "Naya Kanga"

I, traversing the iced summit ridge of "Naya Kanga"

On top of "Naya Kanga" (taken by Jin-Seok)

We moved Base Camp to the place HMG-Finn map describes Chalepoche, 4200m, a Yak-grazing field between Langtang Lirung Glacier and Yubra Glacier, one-and-half hour walk to the north of Kyangjin village (pronounced Gengjin), to climb Yubra.  Yubra has seen at least a dozen times attempts since it was opened in 2002, notably by different Japanese climbers, as I checked the database of NMA.  The peak was officially first-ascended by two Japanese and three Sherpa climbers earlier that month.  Mr. Griffin opined it FAed earlier, however, as he described Langtang as “always an excellent place for people to climb without permits, and I think most of the peaks there - except for the very high and difficult - have been climbed.”

The peak is far inside of the Yubra plateau up on the glacier, and so we had to scramble half-glaciated terrain for about five hours to reach at what we called “shoulder” to camp the night (5,420m).  This part of Langtang Himal must have generated interest to many climbing-oriented trekkers since such stunning peaks like Kinshung and Yansa Tsenji, perhaps not ascended yet to my view, rise next to the plateau.  The next day we were relieved to find the plateau being with crevasses less than we concerned, and, after three hours of trudging the glacier, we finally arrived at the foot of the Southwest face.  The face was of about 70° and relatively straightforward, although its bergschrund was wide and deep.  We climbed about 800m on the face, still 200m shy from the top and yet, seeing clouds were approaching from southwest -- perhaps signalling an arrival of winter monsoon -- decided to turn back.  We spent one night more on the shoulder camp and retreated to the village.  We called off our last plan of climbing a new route on the North Face of Langshisa Ri, for it seemed tougher than our spirit we discovered.  The remarkable face saw only a single and solo ascent twenty years ago: the late-but-must-be-remembered Slovenian Vanja Furlan, who died on Julian Alps in 1996 a few months after his great climb on Ama Dablam in Khumbu that brought him a posthumous honor of the Piolet d’Or, ironically duoed with Tomaž Humar.

Yubra seen from Ganja-la side

Making a campsite on the "shoulder" of Yubra (taken by Jin-Seok)

Climbing Bergschrund of Yubra

Climbing the southwest face of Yubra

Climbing the southwest face of Yubra

The stunning north face of Langsisa-ri

At Thimbu (1500m) where we took a bus to Kathmandu - I cannot by far find any single moment that may be comparable to the mixture of relief, comfort, and nostalgia one would have to face at an actual end of journey.  Realizing I was seeking this bliss at every end, then, "wandering" -- going aimlessly -- has always to be ironic, if not helpless faking.

We dubbed our journey "Langtang Wanderers 2014," without hiring any guide or Sherpa, mostly because we just wanted to wander in actual from mountain to mountain without posing any sense of duty to our climb beforehand, which has, I believe, indeed been cases among Koreans on high mountains.  I have found, then, there was Langtang Wanderers 1999 of four Western climbers who climbed Gangchenpo and Morimoto without issuing permits.  One of them writes: “I'm not a criminal by nature, but the royalties and rules in the Himalayas these days are nearing extortion, and the governments of some Himalayan countries are notorious for skimming funds which are earmarked for the population. Also, I had arrived in Kathmandu with only four hundred bucks to my name.”  As it seemed this type of rendering of the law of the country not infrequent, we think of this unfair and counter-serviceable to the future of mountaineering.  We did almost same things -- we only bought a permit for Yubra, but not for the first two, to be honest and to be clear.  So we still feel sorry about that and want to make apology; but to whom?

Note: Special Thanks to Korean Himalayan Fund, who assisted our journey.

You might want to read another version of report written by myself (in Korean!!!), published in magazine mountain; man&mountain; e-mountain written by Jin-Seok; or american alpine journal by Lindsay Griffin.

Kyashar: Mountaineer vs. Local

"Kyashar" [pronounced ke-sar] is one of the Sherpa names for a mountain (6769m) in the Khumbu region,  northeastern Nepal.  The local Sherpas to the south of the mountain call it "Charpate", meaning square, for the peak looks square.  The mountain has been climbed at least eight times since it opened officially, including three Japanese climbers first ascent of the difficult south-pillar, November 2012.  This climb was received praise from the mountaineering community in the world, as the team was awarded 2013 Piolet d'Or (golden ice axe).

When I visited the village to the south of the peak (Thaknag or Thangnang [4350m/14,270ft]), a local Sherpani lady narrated a frustration.  "Last October, three Japanese climbed the Charpate for about ten days.  And later, the lake below the mountain broke out and so some of the houses here partly broken, with a loss of crops.  That peak has long been a mountain to which lamas offered puja."  Temba, our team guide of the time, said, "that peak had been closed long ago.  But once opened, people climbed, and it flooded.  So people requested that the government had to close the mountain again."

The Nepalese government made it happen, as they put the peak off from the opened list, May 2014.

I am just confused what it would mean by some values such as "respect for the mountain" and "pass down to future generation", as the Piolet d'Or officially announces as its aim.  If these are defined solely by the mountaineers' terms, then, I think, this business has no meaning to the local who have no duty to learn mountaineers' language.  While mountaineers may have their own ideal, as I love to do, I just hope that they are pleased not to assume themselves be a true respecter of the mountain and of the future generation.

Sherpa village lives during monsoon - 1

A few clips on the "Makalu" Sherpa village lives during monsoon period.

milling corn (for making chang)

"Chang", the locally brewed beverage, is one of the most important materials of their village life.  Women would exert powerful authority regarding the alcoholic beverage.

A sherpa working on a field

Summer, or in particular monsoon season, is the hardest period for the Sherpas.  Everything become wet, but a lot of things to do.

A Sherpani carries leaves to give as food for domestic animals

Women would work in and around the village, while men might go outside of the village not infrequently.

Sherpas weed out on a field

At least twice you should do weed out on each field.  A labor would be paid 500 NPR per day.

Sherpas working on a field - planting millet

[warning - disgusting scene] killing an animal, of course for food

To how much extent would an animal know one's own death?

Purna's Report

"'Hyungnim'(brother in Korean), Seong-ho looks weird!"

I waked up as Chi-young cried on the verge of tears.  Five a.m.  Due to snow-blinded from the last day's summit climbing I could not open my eyes.  My memory of the time reveals me only sounds and feelings.  Chang-ho and Il-jin, spent the night sharing the tent with me, left out to their tent.  Many thoughts struck my head.  Perhaps he might not die.  Yet If it was the case, Chi-young must have waked us up much urgently.  Tried to keep my ears open, and guess from this, that the only thing I could do.  The 'hyung'(brother in Korean)s frequently checked my condition and asked whether I would be able to climb down that day.  It had been very painful until last night, whereas this morning, although I could not open the eyes yet, pain was gone a lot.  However, to climb down blind from the camp seemed hopeless.

I hoped to climb down the next day and so I asked.  However, it was found again unworkable since the oxygen canisters left not enough and other members, Chang-ho in particular for his summit-without-oxygen, should have moved down as soon as possible.

Hours already passed managing the death.  Firstly Il-jin and Chi-young left; it was decided that next I would go down with Chang-ho.  Everything was decided and conducted in a very calm manner, from which nobody would be hinted a death of someone.  I was able to sense, however, that Seong-ho was died, or at least he was almost died.  I heard a rescue party being organized and climbing up to the last camp.  Chang-ho was indeed desperately exhausted: voiced completely hoarse without any bodily strength.  The Sherpas helped me walk short-roped.  Felt nervous, although Chang-ho would help me.  Fell down immediately after a few steps.  Could I climb down ... but I must.  Pasang held me in the front, and Chang-ho let me know where I should step next.  Between the two camps (Camp Four and Camp Three) were several points from which an incident of a fall would never stop until the 3000 ft below the Lhotse face.  I tried to make steps very carefully.  Then, for I could not see anything, strangely enough I became not scared.  As such was everything there then.  Calloused to someone's death as done to my own danger.  My own death might have been anything but sorrowful, as Seong-ho's death had never been sorrowful to us.  As taking a rest from tumbles, Chang-ho said, "Purna, you know Seong-ho hyung has been dead?  You should go back alive."

Now it was proved.  This was the first word that let me know his death.  Grimaced: my natural reaction, and silenced.  Next, one thought arrived: I should be more spirited to be a solace to him.  "Yes!"  Responded loudest as far as I could.

... Due to the unexpected situation [the broken bridge on the Icefall that halted their descending], staying at Camp One, talking to each other on everyday chores.  Laughed at things trivial and stupid jokes, as if nothing had happened.

... Nearing Base Camp, a few people walked out to us.  Almost tearing as I saw them; however, before them I did not want to weep.  Determined, I shared greetings.

"You made efforts," someone said.

This was enough to me.

Excerpt from Purna Jeon, "2013 Korean Everest-Lhotse Expedition", Excelsior 2013, vol.36, pp.89-96, translated by Young Hoon Oh

Purna walking toward the top of Mt. Everest (photo taken from the top)

Purna on the top

 Purna (the lower) climbing down from the summit ridge.

Purna climbing down from Balcony

Now snow-blinded Purna climbing down the Yellow Band

The South Col tents and Mt. Lhotse in the back (taken on c8300m of Everest) 

Now snow-blinded Purna ready to go down from Camp Four

The Camp Four of South Col, Mt. Everest.  May 21, 2013

Death Incomprehensible

I should apologize to the readers and, if any, the followers of this blog for not writing up for a long time.  It is due, among many others, to a serious psychological attack that this fieldwork has delivered to me.  One event that I might choose from those in the fieldwork was a death incident occurred during my last Everest expedition.

It was 11:15 AM 20 May, 2013, that I got from my radio the deteriorated voice from my fellow climber, Seong-Ho Seo, as he had just got on the top of Mt. Everest.  I was relaxing in the fourth and last camp of Mt. Lhotse, the fourth highest mountain in the world and the elevation of which is 27,940 ft, and preparing for the summit assault for the mountain planned to begin late in the evening.  The camp is not far from the last camp of Mt. Everest in the South Col, the elevation of which is 25,938 ft--although it may be reachable within one hour from either direction in good condition of everything, in Himalayan standard the one-hour gap can always be completely impossible to cross over.  His voice was so weird as you possibly imagine how his mouth and somehow his brain, too, were frozen.  And, it was no more three hours later when I got another message from his accompanied Sherpa guide Ngaa Tenji Sherpa, saying "We need rescue ... Seo dai (brother) has no energy ... so slow."

I briefly contacted with other Sherpas in each of Base Camp and South Col via different radio frequency.  As the Nepalese company has dispatched more than one hundred "members" (as they called the clients on Himalayan mountain ordinarily) and the more Nepalese staff members, it was the plan to set "extra Sherpa" on the last camp during the summit assault for any probable emergency.  "We're seeing climbers coming down from the Balcony ... we will send Sherpas."  After exchanging further conversation in Sherpa language via the radio, Karma Sherpa, the guide of a British woman Melissa for Lhotse and occupying the same tent here in the Camp Four, told me: "They sent Sherpas to rescue.  We don't need to worry, and you should go Lhotse with us."  I had planned to climb the peak without supplemental oxygen, and a plan was made two days ago with him and his client that we start climb to the top together that night.

However, I could not trust what the Sherpas said: They might not dispatch any further Sherpas to rescue the people struggling over the highest place, at least now.  This was only a moment's decision: I should go, not to Lhotse, but to Everest.  Climbing Lhotse did not anymore appeal to me; it was too easy, easier than to meet up Seo as soon as possible, to see if I can rescue him down, to prove if I can overcome what might be called death-doom.  Packing up everything again, I began to plunge the snow gully between the two camps.

Just as my presumption nobody was dispatched up, and even no such an idea for "rescue".  Rim, a cameraman who was waiting for the summit party at the martian place, looked surprised to my upcoming--he even did not know of Seo's struggle, for anyway he did not have a radio.  I was quick to prepare to start a rescue and ask for two sets of oxygen to Sherpa guide.  And I was told, "five hundred each," for the oxygen tank.  It was not why they did not send up any Sherpa to try rescue, why they made a lie to me, or to what extent the debilitated party may struggle now, that struck to me on the spot.  It was rather why the canister should be so expensive here than Base camp where one is only three hundred dollars.

It was 10:30 PM when I finally came back to the camp with Seo, after six hours I left up to the mountain.  He was alive, at least until that midnight.  I, too, was sure of my life, that even though it was too difficult to asleep and to breathe without oxygen gas in the camp during that night.  I had to wake up frequently suffering suffocation, and the day's summitter Seok-Ju Woo who was sharing the tent with me needed to take care of me.  And, it was early in the next morning that I awoke by a tearful scream Chiyoung An from the next tent.  We had tried belated effort to wake him up, give him a new life.  To me, however, Seo's death was not anymore shocking.  The next day, I just had packed him up within his sleeping back, roped him up, attached to a sled-like rescue tap, and brought him down with other 'rescuers' to the foot of the Lhotse Face.

Sadness?  Not clear.  Yes, I did cried a lot.  But I do not know the tears I made were to prove any sorrow of his death.  Almost a year passed from since.  And yet I do not know how I can register the meaning of his death into my life.  It pretty much looks like he may live somewhere else on this earth.  Or, I cannot see any difference of his absence from any other's absence: As he is not here right now, you, the admirable reader of this blog, and other beloved friends of mine who may be busy to make their own lives somewhere in the world are, too, not here in front of me right now.

Now I am back in Riverside, California, about to start to write my PhD dissertation based on the two years of fieldwork in Nepal, Korea, and the mountains incomprehensible.  Perhaps I would write a paper murmuring sort of philosophy.  I would pencil a sketch on the indescribable, as it is the task any writers supposed to do.  Or rather, I may forgive myself to escape from this befouling work.