801 Museum Matters with Mary Beard; Fascinating Museums; Soul of South Korea

22:02Rick Steves:It's called outsider art. When you're in Switzerland, there's the Brut Art Collection on Lake Geneva, and it's done by people who were locked up because they were considered criminally insane. And you just feel like their vision of the world was just totally apart from mine, and it was just so fascinating. And that's an example of a museum that can humble you and take you out of what you think is the norm. I was struck by the fact that you particularly loved the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles, Oh, yeah. What was it? Of all the museums that you see that you thought you'd isolate that one as an example of one that particularly worked for you?

22:41Well, there's times in which I consider it my favorite museum. The museum is sort of the Andy Kaufman of museums. It is very unpredictable. I don't want to give away the joke here. But to experience that museum is something that you'll never forget. And I don't want to ruin that experience by telling so much except to say they turned the concept of what a museum can be and what the experience could be and turns it on its head.

23:11Rick Steves:So that classic, you know, in Europe, there are certain museums that pride themselves in being Victorian. I mean, they're 19th century. They're from the 1800s. They haven't changed. But, of course, there's a much bigger movement to make museums interactive and to connect with the visitor. Experiential, right? What's an example of some creative things that are being done that you think are great? Well, I mean, I'm doing just that. I'm trying to raise awareness to humanize the museums because our first perception of museums is someplace that can feel like homework. But I try to explain there's a museum for everyone.

23:46And an example of sort of an out-of-the-box, sort of state-of-the-art new technology used in museums is that if you go to the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, New York, the first thing you do is you kind of get tested very briefly on your sense of humor. Once they analyze what your sense of humor is, you're given this information band that you wear on your wrist. And when you walk through the museum, the exhibit changes to accommodate your sensibilities and humor.

24:18Rick Steves:Yes, I had the same experience in Berlin at the Humboldt Forum. It's the biggest site in Berlin that's new. and the museum there, you wear a wristband and every time you leave a room, you answer a question and you walk through the door on the left or the door on the right and that's your vote. And when you're all done with the museum, you get a printout that analyzes how you responded emotionally and psychologically to the experience you just had. And a lot of times I feel like these are trying too hard, but that one really worked well for me. And I thought, man, that took this museum going to another level.

24:56Rick Steves:I learned without even realizing it when I got through that experience. It was wonderful. Yeah, Rick, you know, it also makes what kind of the perception of museums of being cold and gives them a warmth, it really makes it more personal. And I mean, my book was trying to make all the stories feel personal and show aside the museums you wouldn't normally think of. Our guest on Travel with Rick Steves is Bob Eckstein. As a humorist and cartoonist, Bob focuses on the little things that offer moments of joy when visiting all types of museums across North America. His illustrated book is called Footnotes from the Most Fascinating Museums.

25:32Rick Steves:Bob also co-hosts an occasional podcast with a fellow New Yorker cartoonist. It's called The Cartoon Pad. You know, I always think that people are always looking to me for budget tricks. You know, how can I get into the museum for half price? Is it worth going on Thursday mornings when it's free or whatever? And I think that's not that productive. I think what's most productive is when you think about value, is to realize the more you bring to a museum in context and understanding, the more you'll get out of the visit. True, true. And you're bringing up a point that I really didn't focus totally on the book, which is attitude.

26:07Bringing the right attitude with you that you're open and that you're not going to be just seeing what is considered the landmark pieces, like you said, the Mona Lisa and stuff. But discovering for yourself, an example is that the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is arguably the most important museum in the world, next to the Louvre, they have a section called the Visionary Archives, which no one goes to as a section that's really not meant for display, but the public has access to it. And there you have all the artwork that's not formally on display, but you could go check it out.

26:45Rick Steves:Huh. See, this is a dimension of a museum that only the kind of A-plus student would even consider. I always think about that when I go back to my favorite museums. I do the same well-worn route every time as everybody else does, and they complain about the crowds in that museum when there are wings of that museum that are just as worthwhile that nobody goes to. Let's talk a little bit about the museums. You mentioned the Met in New York City, apparently the largest collection in the Western Hemisphere. Of course, the Smithsonian is huge. What's that, a collection of like 20 or 21 different museums?

27:20Rick Steves:What are the top five or six institutions? I mean, just great museums that they're no secret, but you got to see them, you know, when you're in Chicago, when you're in Los Angeles, when you're in D.C. or New York. Well, I distinguish that in my book by giving them a full spread. There are some museums that are just so large you can't even see in one day, and they're so important. They cover almost every culture, as you mentioned. You could go to the Met and go into the lower level, and that's enough for one day. And in those kind of cases, it's a blessing you can't see at all, and don't try to.

27:54Rick Steves:If you try to blitz the whole thing, you're just going to exhaust yourself and be overwhelmed. You've got the rest of your life to go back to New York City. Why not see the Met as several different collections, and you focus smartly on one at a time? Of course, the same thing with the great museums in Washington, D.C. What about the Art Institute of Chicago? Well, that's a favorite. I love that museum, and it has some very iconic paintings. You asked me what are the top five. I'll mention the Peabody Essence Museum, Massachusetts. Amazing museum. There's Mass Mocha. I could spend my whole life there.

28:30I could live somewhere in there, and I would be happy.

28:33Rick Steves:Mass Mocha. What is Mass Mocha? Mass Mocha is contemporary artwork and has on display some of my favorite contemporary artists. And when I go there, I'm also torn about having to go to another museum because I don't want to forget what I just saw. And what city is that in? It's all the way up in the northern western corner up by Adams. You said there's like, what, 600 museums in Massachusetts or something like that? There's so many museums. I mean, the Clark Museum, the Sleeper House, which is one of the most amazing homes, which inspired my home. I had refixed my home, a fixer-upper, to include secret passages after having an unforgettable day at the Sleeper Museum near Cape Cod in Massachusetts.

29:20Rick Steves:So what is Sleeper Museum? What does that mean? The Sleeper House is a house that this man constructed a century ago that everything has been custom-made, and it's just a dream house. And that's an example of how museums can be anything. Museums don't have to be what we traditionally think of as paintings on the wall, but it could be all sorts of things. Also, Bob, you wrote, going on vacation as a kid was a master class in boredom. That is a great line. And it's true. Kids get dragged to these museums. Part of your mission, I think, in your book is to help families to develop a smart bucket list for their summer vacation when they take the kids out and introduce kids to museums in a positive way.

30:01Rick Steves:Which museums do you applaud for being kid-friendly? Oh, you'd be surprised. Almost all of them try. And the most important part that they do is they make it affordable. And there's even some museums that are free. But a lot of museums also have free nights and times in the day you could bring your family for free. And this is something that was on my mind while writing the book about how expensive it is today to, let's say, bring a family of four people to Yankee Stadium to watch a ballgame. Never mind Yankee Stadium. Try to bring them to a minor league game. Tickets could be$65 for each person and then the food and everything.

30:39So I'm trying to bring up the fact that museums have actually made themselves approachable.

30:45Rick Steves:And I would just think from a parenting point of view or from a point of view of anybody that wants to have a transformational travel experience, to make your museum going a little more thoughtful is really worthwhile. Bob Eckstein, thanks so much for your passion for museums and sharing it. It's kind of infectious. Thanks for joining us. Thanks so much, Rick. See you in a museum someday, either in New York or maybe New Delhi. Careful, I'm holding you to that.

31:15Rick Steves:We've got more with Bob Eckstein in an extra from this week's interview as he tells us about an archive of curious scents in Berkeley, California and the amazing Mark Twain home in Hartford, Connecticut. You can hear it where we post this week's show at ricksteves.com slash radio. Our museum theme continues next week on Travel with Rick Steves with Elaine Shalino from Paris. She'll take a closer look at the women of the Louvre Museum in what is otherwise a man's world of classic art. Up next, travel writer Cheney Kwok shares what he likes best about visiting his family origins in South Korea with a mix of big city excitement and unwinding in a traditional Korean village by the sea.

32:00Hi, I'm Apostolos from Athens, Greece and I travel with Rick Steves. And what I just said in Greek was I'm Apostolos from Athens, Greece and I travel with Rick Steves. And now I will say it again in Greek. I'm an apostle from Athens, from Greece and I travel with Rick Steves.

32:43Rick Steves:The mystical island of Jeju is the complete opposite of Seoul. Even the Korean dialect they speak there is closer to the languages of centuries past. Jeju is where shamans bless the villagers every spring and where women, free-form divers, go deep every day to bring up the freshest of seafood. Cheney joins us now to see Seoul in three busy days and then share what it's like to meet the women of Jeju, eat their fresh seafood, and enjoy the Seoul of Korea. Cheney, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me, Rick. Cheney, first of all, you're, I understand, first-generation American. How did your family end up in the United States?

33:23You know, funny story is that my uncle, who landed in Washington, D.C. in the 60s, thought Washington, D.C. must be the capital, the greater city. Something traumatic happened. He wouldn't talk about it, but he wanted to get away as far from Washington, D.C. as possible. He looked at the map, said Seattle. And he took the bus across, and then he started bringing his family over. So all the quarks in Washington state used to be related to each other up until the late 90s.

33:52Rick Steves:Now, is your family, does it have a relationship with the old country? Did you go back there as a child? And how well connected are you with the relatives back in Korea? Absolutely. Every few years, I try to make it back to Korea. It's been a couple of years now because of the pandemic. But my mother's side of the family is all in Korea as well, outside of Seoul, which is one of the reasons why I'm really familiar with Seoul and also have this great personal connection. My mom was born in Seoul, which is something she's proud of. And, yeah. Give us an introduction to Seoul, first of all. How would you describe Seoul to somebody who's maybe been to Tokyo?

34:31Yeah, it's a controversial take, but I want to say that actually you should start your first Asian trip in Seoul because, for one, it's a great gateway with lots of connections to all around the world, but it's also not a tourist trap. It's a thriving, even throbbing metropolis of almost 10 million people, and you really get a slice of real life, what it's like to live in a very hyper-modern Asian country. I also want to say it's a terrific place to be jet-lagged because it's a 24-hour kind of city. So if you want to get a perm or eat a meal or what have you, go for clothing shopping at 3 a.m., it's not a problem.

35:10Rick Steves:Oh, yeah. I saw you did the 36 hours in Seoul thing for the New York Times, and it was the photograph there. It just looks like bright daylight in the middle of the night with all of the neons going on. I'm just going to list a couple of points, and I'd like to get your take on it because we have these cliched images of Seoul. First of all, the pop industry. I mean, you know, Korean pop is actually an economic initiative by the government to be the trendsetters in popular culture. What's the scene in Seoul? You know, it's not quite like the music videos per se, but the fashion does change really fast as do all the slang words.

35:49And you really hear that soundtrack of K-pop wherever you go.

35:54Rick Steves:So we'll talk about, and we all know Gangnam, and it's a place? Seoul's divided into two generally by the river that flows and bisects it. So Gangnam just means south of the river. That's the place with more money because it was developed in the 80s leading up to the 1988 Seoul Olympics. It used to be more agricultural, but now it's a lot of skyscrapers and new money. and Gangnam style is kind of a parody of that kind of gaudiness of new money. Oh, so it's a parody on nouveau riche. Okay, well that explains something for me and it sounds almost related to my next question. I understand there's a kind of tourism there called beauty tourism.

36:40I wish I could partake in that. Korea is known for its plastic surgery skills and industry, shall we say. So there are a lot of tourists from all around Asia who come aspiring for that kind of K-pop, K-drama standard of beauty.

36:59Rick Steves:Cheney, I was in Singapore and I was in Shanghai, and I was blown away by the futuristic shopping. And I have a sense that Seoul can compete with these cities. Like, you've got the biggest subterranean mall in all of Asia, a thousand shops. Talk about the futuristic shopping. Well, the subterranean mall happens to be in Gangnam, our favorite place. And it is true, there are a lot of shopping malls, glitzy and whatnot. But I tell tourists going to Korea to experience Dongdaemun, which used to be a wholesaler market. And this is the place where you can go at 3 o 'clock in the morning, 2 o 'clock in the morning to check out the latest fashion that's about to take over the K-pop aesthetics.

37:45as well as Namdaemun, which is the South Gate, literally in Korean, where you can sample a lot of street food and get a pair of glasses done in an hour. I think there are a lot of remnants of old Korea in Seoul as well. So even though there are a lot of shopping malls, you can still find alleyways where people are selling dried vegetables. And one of the more off-the-beaten-path places I would recommend would be Gyeongdong Market. There's an alley that sells medicinal herbs only. It's quite an experience to walk down and just smell the pungent ginseng and different kinds of medicinal herbs.

38:24Rick Steves:Travel writer Cheney Kwok divides his time between San Francisco and Seoul. He's recommending his favorite highlights for visiting South Korea right now in this visit from the Travel with Rick Steves archives. You can read his article about the sea women of Jeju Island at cheneykwok.com. That's spelled K-W-A-K. You can also listen to our conversation about the cruise ship nightmare Cheney survived off the stormy coast of Arctic Norway. It's linked from this week's show notes at ricksteves.com slash radio. His book about the ordeal is called The Passenger. Hey, I was going to ask you, just from a practical point of view, what about the language barrier for somebody like me who doesn't speak a word of Korean, and what are the costs compared to the United States, and are there day tours that can give you a good bearing for Seoul?

39:13Yeah, so Incheon International Airport actually arranges day tours if you just happen to be transiting for a day. For free, I believe, actually. I'm going to have to fact check that. So if you happen to be passing through, you can actually get in a bus arranged by the Korean government to take a look at Seoul. As far as the language is concerned, it is true. Unlike Singapore, English is not the official language. Korean is. The good news is that Seoul, young people will speak English and also street signs are going to be in English as well. But I like to tell people to learn how to read Korean when they go to Seoul because it is a completely phonetic script.

39:53And I have a friend who learned to read and write during his flight over to Korea. It's an extremely logical and easy script to learn. And you'll be surprised how much you can actually read because even though Korean is a very different language, A lot of words come from English now. So you'll be walking down the street and you'll see a road sign and realize, oh, it says massage.

40:16Rick Steves:Give us a quick tip on eating. I mean, I'm sure we're going to check out pork belly barbecue and kimchi. What should be on our list for enjoying the cuisine of Korea? I would say you should go out to the sidewalk tent eateries, a lot of street food in the afternoon as well as throughout the night. And you're going to find all sorts of different things. tteokboki, which is really spicy rice cake, is a staple, as well as gilgari toast, which means street toast. It's a sandwich of all sorts of yummy things made right in front of you on a griddle, right on the street. That sounds like fun, just street food in pop-up tents.

40:55Bottles and bottles of soju shared with your friends. That's just the norm. and there's a culture of counting the rounds that you do, not as in one place, mind you. When you say 일자, that means the first round in one place. You go to 이자, 삼자, you keep adding different pit stops, inevitably ending up in a karaoke bar.

41:19Rick Steves:If I went to Korea as somebody who's obviously not Korean and I had a spirit of adventure and I took my nap in the afternoon, I could go out at night and make some friends and go to a series of little pop-up tent bars and share buying grounds for everybody and have a fun evening? For sure. I would start in Itaewon, which has a lot of foreigners, and then you can venture out from there. I love Itaewon, actually, because it's the truly multicultural part of Seoul where you would see a mosque next to a gay bar. It's the only place in Korea, in fact, that you would see that. A lot of the establishments cater to American English teachers and soldiers who are stationed there.

42:00so you can get your bearings there and then start expanding.

42:04Rick Steves:This is Travel with Rick Steves. We're talking with Cheney Kwok, and Cheney is the author of a book called The Passenger, which talks about an adventure he had on a cruise ship that nearly sank up in Norway. And right now we're joining Cheney and talking about his family's homeland, Korea. And Cheney, if I had three days in Seoul, before we get out into the countryside, because I want to go there in a moment, give me just a quick look. We've talked about a lot of general things, But how would you be glad that you had three days in the big city of Korea, Seoul? Yeah, first night, jet lagged, go to Dongdaemun, go to a wholesaler's fashion market and then eat a lot of street food.

42:40Second night, Itaewon, lots of expats as well as diverse kinds of people. and I would also make sure to spend some time during the day in Gangbuk, north of the river, where old houses are still in existence next to skyscrapers. There's a place called Bukcheon, which has traditional Korean homes just cascading down a hill, and from there you can see the rising skyscrapers. It's quite an experience. And if I can recommend a couple of off-the-beaten-path places, A Korean Furniture Museum, which is a private museum inside a traditional house, has exquisite collections of traditional furniture and they do tours in English.

43:26In fact, you have to make an appointment to go there. And then there's also a place called a Korean Stone Art Museum, all about art sculptures made out of stone. But it's interesting because the name in Korean is not exactly Korean Stone Art Museum. It is 우리 옅돌 박물관, which means Our Old Stone Museum, literally. And I think there's something kind of poetic about that, that kind of old stone and celebrating that. In a city, hyper-modern city like Seoul, I think you need a stop like that.

44:04Rick Steves:Let's say we've done Seoul, and just this conversation makes me want to go to Seoul for the first time in my life. I've got to be honest. I want to check this out. But you balance it with a trip to the countryside, and you've got this one favorite place. It's just a couple hours away, an island the size of Maui with about only 700 ,000 people in it, and it's called Jeju. Why would you go to Jeju? What's there? You know, the one word that Koreans would associate with Jeju would be pure. Its water is renowned, and it's just a very different place than Seoul, even though it's only about 300 miles south.

44:43By no means is it a secret because a lot of Koreans will have gone there, if not would aspire to go there, because it is beautiful. Canola flowers fluttering in the air, and there's this dramatic volcano that's been dormant for thousands of years. But more than the natural beauty, I think it's a really intriguing place. The island of Jeju likes to pride itself as the island of 180 ,000 gods. There's a lot of shamanism or remnants of shamanism, whether it's in the form of shrines or in the form of gud, which is a ceremony that a shaman would perform in order to ward off evil and make offerings.

45:26And I was fortunate enough to see one of those, and it's quite an interesting experience. to see someone going to trance and walk on sharp blades, sharp enough to cut silk, but then they would dance on this two propped-up blades.

45:43Rick Steves:You mentioned there's a kind of a culture of artists that are escaping the urban intensity and setting up galleries in Jeju. That's the modern spin of it. So these days, a lot of people burnt out in Seoul would flee down there and either open a pension or coffee shop or just dedicate their lives to painting. And there are a lot of galleries that have opened up, as well as actually quite a prestigious gallery called Arario, which took up actually a couple of old run-down motels and turned them into this really incredible contemporary art experience. Now, I was going to ask you about the seafood in this island, Jeju, J-E-J-U.

46:24Rick Steves:But I think before you talk about the seafood, you got to talk about this unique tradition of women deep divers. Tell us about that. Yeah, they're called henyo, which literally means sea women. These are women free divers who would go down there to collect mollusks and seaweed like kelp, sea cucumbers, abalone, all sorts of things. You know, in 1965, there were over 23 ,000 henyo, which would make them about one in five women in the province at the time. Today, the total population has doubled, and there are fewer than 4 ,000 active henyo. 90 % of them are actually over the age of 60. So it is kind of a dying art.

47:10Rick Steves:Are they diving without a scuba tank? They're just holding their breath? They're just holding their breath. And in fact, into the 70s, they were wearing nothing but cotton. so they didn't even have Neospreen to shield them. I asked one of them, isn't that kind of silly? Why don't you wear an oxygen tank? And she said, are you crazy? What would my grandchildren eat? I could clean out the whole island in a day. Ah, so that's it. It's just more sporty if they don't have the advantage of a scuba tank. It's also an interest in sustainability. Yes, that's a beautiful sensibility. That is a beautiful sensibility.

47:49Rick Steves:And this survives to this day. It's beautiful. Yeah, it's also incredible to see women in their 70s, even 80s. Some of them can't really walk. And then all of a sudden, they dive and they can move like mermaids because they're so much more used to working undersea. It is a really rough profession. And, you know, unfortunately, many of them develop diseases later on. But when it comes to diving, they seem to do it just fine well into their 80s. Huh. This is Travel with Rick Steves. We're talking with Cheney Kwok, a fascinating discussion about Korea. You know, Cheney, if you're on this amazing island of Jeju, describe a memorable meal you had there.

48:28Rick Steves:I hope it features a little seafood after these women are diving so deep to get it. Absolutely. And this reinforces my argument that you should learn to read Korean because I saw a sign that said, Hanyo Shikdang, which literally just means a restaurant run by a sea woman. Went in there and an ex-diver was making meals made out of all the goodies that her colleagues had collected that day. Really spicy stew of all sorts of seafood. And abalone just shucked and fresh enough that even though I feel bad, it's dead, it's sort of kind of moving. Sort of. If it's moving, it's moving. It's not sort of kind of moving.

49:10It is pulsating. I'm sorry to say.

49:12Rick Steves:Pulsating, that makes it even more appetizing. Well, you got to do what you got to do. When in Rome. When in Rome. When on Jeju. Okay, so you had fresh seafood. Let's put it that way. Yeah, there you go. Sounds amazing. Hey, Janie Kwok, this has been a fun, fun exploration. Thanks for sharing. And let's just, final thought. If I go to Korea for the first time in my life, what's a tangible souvenir I might want to bring home? And what's an intangible souvenir that you think would be good for me to take home as well? Well, the tangible souvenir, I would say face masks, all sorts of skin creams, cosmetic products.

49:49And the intangible souvenir I could recommend would be going to Jeju and just being really quiet and listening for some dolphin-like sounds. It's called sumbi, and it's the sound that the sea women make as they emerge into the water and they exhale the last bit of breath. it's the most incredible sound you'll hear

50:11Rick Steves:That is a beautiful moment Cheney Kwok, thank you so much for sharing your family's homeland and best wishes with your travel writing Thank you Rick

50:32Rick Steves:Travel with Rick Steves is produced by Tim Tatton Kaz Muralhall and Donna Bardsley at Rick Steves Europe in Edmonds, Washington. Affiliate relations are by Sheila Gerzoff. Website uploads are by Andrew Wakeling and Sherry Court. Our theme music is by Jerry Frank. Find links to our guests and search the show archives at ricksteves.com slash radio. And we'll look for you again next week with more Travel with Rick Steves. Hey, I'm Rick Steves. Since 1973, I've spent about 100 days a year exploring Europe. My mission? To empower Americans to have European trips that are fun, affordable, and culturally broadening.

51:12Rick Steves:With my 100 well-traveled colleagues, we produce America's best-selling guidebook series and organize small group tours to take over 30 ,000 travelers every year to Europe. If you're dreaming of a European adventure, whether on your own or with a tour, we'd love to help you make it happen.