Mud Day

JULY 2002. I had been in South Korea for only a few months, working as an English teacher at a small, private kindergarten. On a Saturday morning in July, we piled into a bus with our students for a field trip to Jebudo, a small island off the northwestern coast of the country.


Black and white images from scanned film; shot on Kodak T-MAX 35mm


On the way, we stopped off at a salt farm, still on the mainland. We led the kids along the narrow pathways between the evaporation pools, and into the salt barns, where the sea salt sat in large piles.

Back on the bus, and with the salt farm in the rear view, the kids were mostly well-behaved. Jebudo isn't terribly far from Seoul, but the ride is long enough for a bus full of children to get bored. The kids variously mugged for photos, stared out the windows, or fell asleep to pass the time.

When the tide goes out, the mud flats around Jebudo extend beyond the horizon. I don't know whether it's still the case today — and I wouldn't be surprised either way — but Jebudo was then only accessible during low tide, the road and the mud flats alike being fully submerged for much of the day.

The islanders originally earned a living through fishing and agriculture, and it's still common for them to wade into the muck during low tide to forage for shellfish. We stopped off to buy some mussels from an ajumma on the roadside; the adults would grill these later to have with lunch.

When we eventually arrived at our destination, the island's southern beach, we disembarked from the bus for a picnic lunch on the sand, and I loaded my only color roll of the day.


Color images scanned from film; shot on Kodak GC400 35mm


After eating, the real fun began. We left our shoes behind and waded into the mud in our socks. The Korean adults had a mind to forage with the kids for shellfish, but I had other ideas, and most of the next two hours was spent engaged in mud-slinging battles.

By the end of it, we were filthy, of course, and the kids were rightly exhausted. So were most of the teachers. We found a hose and cleaned up as best we could before boarding the bus for home. The kids slept all the way back to Seoul, and I probably did as well. A fun day was had, and I'm sure the first thing I did on arriving home was take a long, hot shower.