American professor moonlights as tour guide around South Jeolla Province


When Warren Parsons started the GIC Tours, it wasn’t something he’d set out to do.

In fact, he had never given guided tours before.

He first came to Korea to teach English in Seoul in 2006. After moving to Naju, South Jeolla Province, he started to help out at the Gwangju International Center nearby.

After giving a talk at the center, he was asked back, but Parsons wanted to do something more interesting.

“I wasn’t interested in coming into the office on a Saturday, on a nice day. So I suggested that we do the talk outside,” he said. “And the tours started from there.”

His first talk was a tour of Naju, where he lives and teaches at a university. After a good reception, the GIC Tours became a monthly event, taking place on the last Saturday of every month.

As Parsons was familiar with the area, Naju was a place where he had a natural advantage in giving an interesting tour. It became a kind of template for the destinations he chose.

“There’s a relationship with the places we go to,” said Parsons.

“There’s a farm we go to in Naju every year and it’s an organic soybean farm and they make ‘doenjang’ (bean paste) and ‘ganjang’ (soy sauce) traditionally. And it’s an opportunity for people to get their hands dirty and try farming lifestyle.

“But Naju as a precedent for the other places is partly about having a personal relationship for the destinations.”

It also gave him an idea about the kind of trips he wanted to organize ― compact, with a balance of activities.

“I like to schedule a few places where people can take their time and get a nice feel for the location,” he said. “I always try to include a bit of nature and some activity, and even if people don’t like it, it will be a bit of a challenge for them, to do something new.

“I try to have a balance of things, the nature, the food and some form of history and culture that people can experience.”

This often consists of a short hike to where the other activities are, including lunch.

“I try to select local foods, or interesting foods that people can’t typically eat in their daily life, that are unique to the location.

“This past week we had farm-raised free-range chicken and one of the main items on the menu was raw chicken. ... It’s very untypical and it’s a bit of a challenge.”

Less brave souls can eat the meat as a stir fry.

Parsons says there are often gripes from people who find something on the tour they didn’t like, but that even these people usually appreciate the opportunity to experience something new, as on a recent trip to the coast.

“Some of the non-Koreans complained that it was raw fish, but they said it was good to try,” he said. “That’s kind of the point ― to give people the opportunity to try something they wouldn’t normally do.”

The tours started off mostly close to Gwangju, but now travel across the South Jeolla area. But while some destinations have significant travel times, Parsons tries to ensure there are as few gaps between the activities as possible.

“I try to pick one place so that we don’t have to travel around so much,” he said. “We’re going to Jindo next month, which is 2 hours away, but once we get there, all the locations we are visiting are pretty close to each other, so we don’t have to go around so much.”

With so many to choose from, it might be hard picking a favorite, but Parsons picked out two that had a good balance of compactness and variety.

“Naju might be the best because it’s the first and it’s also very compact and it’s also very relaxing because everything is there and the driving time is low.

“This last tour we did was to Yeongam and we did that last year as well, and it was very successful because the mountain is beautiful and the food is very unique and challenging, and the history is there. It’s all a very nice, perfect package.”

The GIC Tours also stay at a temple each year. Rather than the standard Templestay program, the GIC Tour version is more informal.

“I’ve done Templestays on my own or with other organizations and it’s pretty much just a preset program. You stay in separate places and eat separately, it’s very rigid,” said Parsons.

“The temples we choose, we eat with the monks, we sleep in the same part of the temple in one of the main buildings where the monks stay.

“We try to do things like have the monks take us hiking or show us somewhere in the local area to show us what their life is like. Foreign residents really love it. And occasionally tourists come on our tour and the tourists really love it.”

The tours are in English and Korean, and open to anyone.

The next GIC Tour is on Oct. 27 and visits Jindo, South Jeolla Province. For more information, visit www.gic.or.kr or the center’s Facebook group, gicgwangju.

By Paul Kerry (paulkerry@heraldcorp.com)