My Feet's Feat

While wandering on my own through a small park in Pohang yesterday, I discovered a path with various stones set in concrete. There were sections of the path with small, sharp stones in pretty patterns; other sections had large pieces of granite that reminded me of narrow curbing. One section had stones divided by rounded logs. Women had taken off their shoes and were walking along the path barefooted to stimulate their feet. Curious, I removed my shoes and started down the path as well.

You probably can guess that I have not been walking stone paths my whole life, and this personal insight was rather obvious to all witnesses. I suspect that the woman who laughed heartily when she saw me negotiating the stones might just have recognized me as a newbie. She got me laughing too, and I ungracefully fell off the stone curbing, much to her continued amusement.

While the large stones and logs were fun and comforting to the feet, I will confess that I found the sharp stones rather painful and unpleasant, and I could only negotiate them with jerky and tentative steps punctuated by lots of ows, ouches and yikes! They almost did me in as I contemplated quitting my cross-cultural experience to avoid further pain. I hung in there, determined to get the full benefits that I was sure this Asian tradition would deliver.

I convinced myself that I enjoyed the experience once it was over and even walked back through the stones to get my shoes. (Plus all the Asian women were doing laps on the rocks, and I didn't want to look like wimp.) I can't say that I reached any higher level of enlightenment from the my one-time experience, but it was a positive enough experience (or perhaps I was simply stubborn) that I did undertake it again when later in the day I found another stone path along the riverwalk.

Curious about the benefits of torturing one's feet with little stones, I googled "Korea feet," and inadvertently discovered that there are all kinds of videos featuring people's feet. They include samples from one guy's video collection of Korean, Japanese, American and Canadian women's feet, several videos with titles referring to ugly feet, including one claiming that Katie Couric has ugly feet, and one showing the effect of inbreeding on feet. I can only conclude that perhaps there is too much leisure time in the world.

A more precise search suggested that these unusual footpaths might be a reflection of reflexology: the belief that applying pressure to various points in the feet can help other parts of the body and promote general health. There are a lot of critics of reflexology and its health claims. I stake no claims as to its efficacy, but it was kind of fun, in a masochistic kind of way. Here is my path: