The dim gray light from the morning sunrise has just began to highlight the cars in view from the embassy. Marek, my fellow watch-mate is sipping a cup of tea outside; an orange tabby skulks by under cover of what darkness is left. After five full days here, and quite a lot of change from one moment to the next, things at the moment seem fairly peaceful…just like any other town, at 4:30 in the morning.

Recently however, words like surreal and bizarre have come to mind. We’ve had many mixed reactions and experiences with the people of Ulsan, most of them incredibly positive. Yesterday a gentleman stopped by just to drop off several bottles of water, and last night a woman offered to do some of our laundry. The night before there was a terrible wind storm and a fair amount of rain which shook our tents to the bone, and wreaked quite a havoc on our site. In addition, the morning began with an early visit from a television crew.

The day before yesterday a television station from Ulsan, (KBS-a local branch of a Korea’s top national station,) came to get an idea about life here at the camp. They wanted to focus on one person, and being an American from Korea, the powers that be decided it was me. It started with some hellos and name signings, and quickly led to a shot list of all the images they wanted to capture. Said list included washing my face, brushing my teeth, painting, climbing, cooking, washing dishes, and having a meeting with the camp. So we commenced with a ‘meeting’ in the whale embassy, where I was asked about non-violence tactics. At one point someone turned to me and said, “What do you think about curling up into the fetal position if attacked?” While in some non-violet direct action situations this is very relevant, at the time it was just funny. With the cameras rolling, I gave the most serious answer I could.

A lot of campaign questions were asked, tricky ones too-such has how do we feel about threatening the livelihood of local fisherman. Being someone that has always been uncomfortable in front of any lens, as well as just thrown into this campaign, I did my best to give them what they wanted, and answer all their questions in a way that was in line with everything this campaign has worked and continues to work so hard for. The day ended with a shot of me getting into my tent, showing them a few personal things, and telling them what my hopes for Ulsan were. I was relieved when they were gone – as kind as they were it was more tiring than you would think. The shoot ended with an early morning visit, to film me cooking and taking a trip to one of the local markets. I had been looking forward to this trip the day before, as it would be the FIRST time I had left the camp since I arrived, but unfortunately I was feeling rather surly this morning, and all I wanted was to crawl back into bed. (or sleeping bag, rather.) As much as I had lost patience towards the end, the crew were very kind, and if all goes well this will be tremendous exposure for the campaign.

While I mentioned that things feel ‘surreal’ or ‘bizarre’, in actuality there are many commonalties between ourselves and the locals here that do oppose our presence. We are all fighting to protect what we know and believe in; what is close to our hearts. Hopefully at some point in the near future, we will be able to see eye to eye.

Stay tuned.
Kelly