Welcome to BASE21

By Nancy/Staff Reporter

Ever since my arrival in South Korea almost two years ago, I had been intending to check out the organic farming scene here. Interested in sustainable agriculture primarily for political reasons (the powers that be are hell bent on destroying the planet, obsessed only by short term profits instead of long term sustainability) and for culinary and health reasons as well (I paid my rent in Canada working as a professional cook), I was eager to see what was happening in the way of organic farming in general and mutual aid communities in particular. My friend kang, who I met through the human rights group "Solidarity for Peace and Human Rights" (SPR), had repeatedly prodded me for some months to visit the byonsan community (byon san gongdongchae). At long last, when I finally got a few days off from work, I packed my bag and headed south to byonsan, far away from the
hectic and toxic megaopolis of Seoul.

Byonsan is a stunningly beautiful coastal area situated on the southwest on the coast of the Yellow Sea. My bus rolled in just in time to catch one of byonsan's famous sunsets, the burnt ochre sun melting into the sea, stretching its dying fingers long into the rice paddies. The community itself is nestled in a mountain valley, about a 20 minute bus ride from the sea. It was dinnertime when I arrived at the community and a hearty dinner made entirely of natural ingredients grown organically on the community farm was being served. The animated family was busy talking about the day's activities, and gregarious laughter filled the room. I was warmly welcomed and eun gyong, my wonderful and patient interpreter (who was to be my constant companion for the next 4 days), gave me the lowdown on the community and what the days ahead held for me.

Visitors to the community are welcomed and encouraged - but each visitor is expected to put in their fair share of work. And the minimum stay is 4 days and 3 nights - the community feels that shorter visits would prevent the visitor from getting a genuine feel for the community and the hard and loving work that is required to maintain it. By far, the most frequent visitors are teachers and students (followed by families) interested in exposing kids to an alternative lifestyle distanced from the pollution and anomie of the city. There have been only 3 foreign visitors in the last 8 years, myself being the third (I was preceded by Japanese and German natives). Steeling myself for the hard day's work ahead of me in the fields the next day, I inquired about the history of the community.

The community was formed 8 years ago when yu gu byong, working as a well respected professor of classical philosophy at konkuk university, decided to call it quits. Yu gu byong (or son seng nim - "teacher"- as he is affectionately called by the members of the community) is a spritely man of 58 with laughing eyes and more often than not, sporting a big grin. His laugh is truly infectious and riotous. The reason he was attracted to philosophy all those years ago was because it sought to answer and explore all of life's
biggest and most pressing questions. But after 15 years of teaching, yu gu byong felt like something was missing: "I felt like I was merely disseminating information and not really connecting with the students. It was like we were running along 2 parallel tracks, never to meet or connect. The kids were asking superficial questions and I would supply them with superficial answers. And the most important questions of all were left neglected and unasked." So yu gu byong hung up his professorial robes and left academia for good so as to fully explore those unasked questions. Soon after, he founded the community.

The community is comprised of roughly 20 members, referring to themselves as a family. The best words to describe life in the community are harmony, balance, and cooperation. While the members are personally diverse, all are anti-capitalist and share a deep desire to live a more meaningful life by rejecting the city's existentially alienating complexities, aiming to derive a profoundly connected life by working and living together in harmony with nature. While yu gu byong founded the community and deeply respected by the members, he is not their leader. The community strives to be leaderless and egalitarian in every way (including gender). It is entirely self sufficient, relying on mutual aid not only to exist but to thrive. It grows it's own food without chemicals and tends/harvests the crops by hand. It builds it's own houses, many of which are traditional Korean mudhouses. And it teaches it's own children through the community's school - offering libertarian education to the community's children (not just the byonsan kids - most of the students are from the surrounding community). The lifestyle is, at turns, harsh and relaxed. When the weather is fine, the family is hard at work in the fields. When it rains (and maintenance projects don't need to be done), members are free to engage in personally fulfilling activities such as art, writing, reading, or whatever else had been put off while the fields are tended.

Feeling I had grasped the basics of what the community was about, I set off for bed.

The next morning, I awoke at dawn to a myriad of birds chirping gaily in the garden outside of eun gyong's room (which is one of several guest rooms housed in a 뱊ong-ga??a traditional Korean connecting shelter, roughly 150 years old, maybe older). Breakfast is eaten together, and cooking duties are shared on a weekly rotational basis. This morning it was made by the capable hands of lee young, who served us kimchi-chigae and beyond wonderful brown rice. We quickly wolfed it down and set off for the giant barley field that had been infested by a formidable army of towering weeds - it was our job to remove them. This was my first ever introduction to spine-crunching/knee bruising fieldwork. We worked and slashed and worked some more, singing ancient Korean farming songs, all the while crawling on our hands and knees along the ground, slashing the endless offending weeds with razor sharp sickles, stopping only occasionally to knock back some makoli (fairly potent rice wine) with our kimchi jon (kind of like a potato pancake made with kimchi). By days end the sun was sinking low in the sky and we were finished. The fact that my back felt like someone had run over it with a tractor and that i couldn't get my spine out of the right angle position it had assumed only slightly detracted from the intense sense of accomplishment I felt at the regal sight that my eyes beheld: high green stalks of barley now unencumbered by weeds, soaking up the sun.

Thankfully, for the next 2 days we were blessed with rain - I was free to explore the farm. I spent the first rainy morning with so young, an elfish community member whose expertise is fabric dying (hemp fabric), using natural vegertable dyes. The colours are really deep and gorgeous, ranging from deep orange made from local red soil, green made from pine, and an amazing purple made from a special insect's nest. She is very adept at making hanbok (traditional Korean outfits, still widely worn by Koreans) and she has a workshop set up in her mudhouse that the community built for her. On her porch overlooking the misty rain drenched mountains, we chatted about the techniques that she used, sipping tea and watching the men working hard in the distance, putting the rafters up on a new storehouse that was being constructed. Next, we visited with yu gu byong to further discuss the philosophy of the community. He explained: "humans are different from animals in that they can't learn by instinct. Humans must actively cultivate understanding. And since the beginning of human history, this quest for understanding has been an unending one. But we can't learn by ourselves - we can only learn in a social context, learning together, and sharing our experiences. People think they are free by being alone but they are wrong - only in a social context can true freedom be had. And we can't know people without first knowing nature. Capitalism fundamentally prevents this goal from being achieved by alienating us from ourselves, from each other, and from nature." When I asked him if he thought that cities were essentially a product of capitalism, he responded: "Life, nature, and freedom are all the same. Cities are built for people, not for nature, and are therefore fundamentally alienating. They are like giant parasites, relentlessly sucking the resources of the surrounding countryside. If the city dweller thinks he is free, he is sadly mistaken. Who is freer: The city dweller or the flower? The flower, of course, because it is self-sufficient. It needs nothing. But the city dweller has been rendered less than fully human by capitalism - he is completely dependent on the city for survival." For yu gu byong and the byonsan family, the simple life that living in harmony with nature affords is the only way to extricate oneself from the superficial illusions and addictions of the city and live a fully real and meaningful life.

When the time came to leave, I felt that it was far too soon. In fact, I felt as though I had made a huge discovery about my existence - I previously thought that I could never live away from the postmodern complexities and seeming conveniences of the city that I loved and craved. I thought I would die of boredom if I were consigned to a farming life. But my visit to the byonsan gongdongchae opened up a new world for me - one that was just as tantalising and complex - but offering a complexity that was deeper, more essential, and spiritually nourishing. I wondered if I was going to get sucked in by the illusory urban distractions that I was addicted to upon re-entering Seoul and if my experiences at byonsan would fade into the chasms of my memories. But they haven't. On the contrary, my memories of byonsan will fuel my quest to build alternatives to the rigid, ugly, and severely limited life possibilities that capitalism affords far into the future.