Day 290: Red Neon Crosses

Today was a very weird day at work. Katie didn't come to work today, and word quickly spread about what had happened to her. Every single one of the staff were absolutely shocked and horrified to hear about her night of terror. There was definitely a weird tension/sadness in the air today in the staff room. Everyone was really quiet all day, and you could tell that all of the staff were lost in thought over what had happened. Katie's supposed to come back to work tomorrow - if she's up to it. I talked to her later on and she said she was looking forward to coming back to work, just for the sake of the routine, and for the fact that our school feels safe and comfortable to her. Poor Katie - I feel so bad for her over what happened!

Addie and I walked home tonight, just the two of us, and again that felt weird too. We played a strange little game though to occupy our minds and it was quite amusing actually. Every once in a while we'd stop in our tracks and count all the red crosses we see. And let me tell you, there are a LOT of neon red crosses in Korea.

Christianity is relatively new to Korea (was introduced just after the Korean War I believe) but has since become very popular, with now almost half of the country claiming to be Christian. Next to the Philippines, Korea is the most Christian of all Asian countries. This boom in Christianity has resulted in an explosion of churches across the Korean landscape. There are thousands upon thousands of churches across this country, and every single of them has a cross on top which is lit up in red neon at night. The Korean cityscape is literally a sea of red crosses as far as the eye can see. It's unbelievable!

And so our game became to count all the red crosses that we see at random points on our walk home. On average, no matter where we were, we could always see at least four or five or more red crosses from our given vantage point. We must pass within view of at least thrity or forty churches during our half hour walk home. That's a lot of churches, let me tell you!!! And that's just our little corner of Ilsan! You multiply that red neon cross factor across all of Korea and you start to get the true tally in your head. Wow! For those with Christian religious tendencies, there sure are a lot of options here.