Flower-Jealousy Weather

Author Simon Winchester coins the phrase "flower-jealousy weather" in his book Korea: A Walk through the Land of Miracles. In 1985, he spent two months walking the length of the penninsula from Jeju-do to Seoul's DMZ. Upon arrival in mid-March of that year, the country was experiencing icey blasts of wind gusts from somewhere in northern China. Just the week before, however, it had been warm enough for flowers to start blooming. The attendant seeing to Simon's passport commented that China was jealous of the beauty that Korea's spring would soon bring to the country and used its winter winds to shake the trees free of their blossoms; China was "flower-jealous." Two and a half decades later, the winter of 2010 is experiencing the same sore feelings.

My birthday, February 24th, dawned beautiful and warm, enough for me to be almost hot as I walked from E-mart to catch the bus in my knee-high lined boots, short-sleeve blouse, and light coat. I met Andy walking out of our apartment wearing his characteristic red-and-black-checkered hunter's coat with matching (sort of) red beanie. As I said hello, he pulled the beanie violently from his head in reaction to the temperature change, discovering he no longer needed the protection his hat afforded. The day itself proved to be bright and cheery, ushering in sunshine and a new sense of hope in our dark, often-too-cold office. It was a welcome relief from the grip of cold that Chunjgu had felt since early November and a tantalizingly close reminder of the coming spring.


Three weeks later, however, with the coming of March and two snows a week apart from each other, spring has yet to arrive in what Andy dubbed "the frozen tundra" of Korea. The whole country, it seems, waits with eager anticipation for the next season's brightness, as winter has quite outstayed its welcome. I mentioned in a recent email to Brandon that it was expected to snow again the night I wrote him. "Come, spring!" I wrote. "You have to get here soon!" "Spring is a trickster," he replied, "giving us a taste of its warm, wonderful days before pulling the Springtime rug out from under us and letting us fall into Winter's diabolical, snowy trap." Snow has now lost whatever romantic charms it once held for me and I commented on a FB post that I just wanted it to "go awa-hay." I admit it's still beautiful, but it's quite time for winter's toy to go back to God's heavenly storehouses and grace us with its presence again next year.