It’s rare that I title a post with a word I’m not necessarily sure is right, but appropriate in this case.
A couple of Fridays ago, as I was preparing to leave for a conference in Seoul, I noticed that there was a lot of strange activity going on all around me. More fighter jets than usual soaring around; traffic all over the city blocked for some incomprehensible reason. When I asked one security guard what was happening, the incomprehensibly mumbled string of words ended with a couple of repeated statements of what sounded like 훌여 or 훌연… (Update: which turns out to be 훈련 — Gord.)
Then the air raid sirens went off. Now, I know I’ve lived in Korea a long time, but I’ve never seen this before, never heard the sirens go off, so this freaked me out a little. A coworker and I were in a taxi crossing town and when I asked the cab driver what 훌연 훈련 meant, he replied with more explanation I couldn’t for the life of me understand. Moments later, we heard the same word again on the radio, and finally I called Lime.
Turns out 훌연 훈련 means military training exercises or something to that effect. Which was a big relief, because for a few minutes there I was suspecting that the Second Korean War had broken out and nobody’d called me to let me know.
Whew. Must start reading news (and perhaps getting out) more.
Hey Gord. I finally broke down and decided to sign up. I’m pretty bad when it comes to signing up for things, and usually it takes something drastic to get me to sign up. Like someone mistaking 훈련 for 훌연. ;) I must admit I was stumped when I saw the post title.
I’m suprised that you’ve never witnessed a 민방위 훈련 before, though. I used to have to deal with them all the time in Seoul. These days, not so much.
Aha, that’s why I couldn’t find it when I looked it up. Heh. I’ll fix that…
By the way: I have seen some weird things in Korea. I’ve seen the sky literally black with birds migrating south. But I had never, ever seen a 민방위훈련 until that day.