Down a
small back street in a run-down suburb in Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province,
is an inauspicious, two-story red brick building. If there were no
sign on the outside, it could be mistaken for a school, a factory or
even a low-security prison.
It is actually the Gurudwara Singh
Sabha ― the beating heart of South Korea’s Sikh community.
As
the country’s only Sikh temple, it is a place where South Korea’s
500 or so Sikhs gather, and is even home to some lay members.
For
Manjit Singh, 35, a businessman from Punjab who has lived in Korea 10
years, attending is a matter of course.
“I believe in God. If I were Hindu I would go to a Hindu temple, if I were Muslim I would go to the Masjid, if Christian I would go to church.”
But
since Singh is a Sikh, he does not attend any of those.
“I
come here,” he says.
Sikhism, founded in the Punjab region
of South Asia in the 15th century, is followed by about 20 million
people around the world. Its core beliefs are contained in the Guru
Granth Sahib ― not a book, but a “living guru,” whose pages are
read from daily by the Babas, the men who preach the religion.
On
the ground floor, groups of Indian men sit together to talk. There
are no chairs ― everyone sits on the lush carpet as equals.
The
walls are donned with portraits of the 10 gurus, paintings from Sikh
history and a TV playing a live feed from the Golden Temple in
Amritsar, the capital of Sikhism. In the kitchen, a group of men make
lunch for everyone.
On the second floor, the Baba-ji chants.
Baba-ji Gurprit Singh, 61, has been the religious leader here for
eight years. He doesn’t leave the site much, and he says no Koreans
have commented on his turban, his long, white, wispy beard, or his
Indian clothes. He came over from Punjab because the community asked
him to, and this is his only job. He rarely speaks to Koreans, and
only eats in the temple.
Every morning he begins chanting at
4:30 a.m. His voice is played through speakers throughout the temple,
but softly, so people can speak over it. Around 7 a.m. he finishes.
He begins again around 5:30 p.m., and chants for another two hours.
On Sundays, he chants straight through the morning until 1:15 p.m.,
stopping only to clear his throat.
All Sunday morning,
worshipers visit him. They climb the stairs slowly, their feet bare
and their heads covered, usually in the orange handkerchiefs the
temple provides. They approach the Baba-ji silently and clasp their
hands together. They kneel before him on a rug, and bend their
foreheads to the floor. Then they rise and circle the Baba-ji,
praying at his sides and behind him. They exit using another
staircase.
The atmosphere in the temple is cheerful but
subdued. Outside, it is more boisterous as friends greet each
other.
Every Sunday, student Lakhwinder Singh makes the three
hour trip from Gonjiam, Gangwon Province, to Pocheon.
Singh,
29, has no Indian friends in Gonjiam, only classmates and two or
three other friends. “But here I have many friends.”
Rupinder
Kaur, 35, runs a grocery and an import-export business with her
husband, Ajay Singh, 42. She is one of the few women at the
gurudwara, but she insists that in Sikhism, “women are the same as
men.” She says the lack of women is because it’s mostly single
men who come to Korea.
Kaur brings her two sons, Gurjot, 10,
and Arshjot, 7, every Sunday, where they run, play and get into
trouble with the other Sikh children.
“This is the
only day they can get together with other children of our community,”
Kaur says.
Kaur’s husband sits on the five-person
committee that runs the temple, which is wholly run by donations, he
said.
Kaur insisted that all religions and nationalities
were welcome at the gurudwara.
“It is free for all
religion people, they can come here at any time,” she says.
Some
of the Indians at the temple have been successful in Korea. Others
have not, and the community tries to help the best they can. They
help people find work, deal with passport issues, file for unpaid
wages, and so on. Most crucially, the temple provides food and
shelter.
Key among Sikh belief is community service. Every
Sikh temple has a “langar,” a kitchen that serves free food to
anyone who wants it, Sikh or otherwise, and temples often double as
homeless shelters.
“People who can’t get a job, they
can come and live here as long as they wish to,” Kaur says. All
meals are free, and provided they abide by the temple’s rules, they
will not be evicted. “Baba-ji helps them contact the people who are
legal here, and those people who have legal jobs will contact Baba-ji
and help.”
Eungav Singh, 48 and Surinder Singh, 36, are both
in Korea trying to live their Korean dreams. Eungav has had more luck
― within a couple months, he had a job at a factory. He says it
isn’t difficult, just “fast.”
Surinder, on the
other hand, regrets having come to Korea. He says he hasn’t found a
job in the nine months he’s been here.
Both Eungav and
Surinder live at the temple. Both miss India very much, but are happy
the winter is over. Recently, there were eight people living in the
temple, but the number fluctuates.
Akash Chodda, 30, is an
engineer with nine years’ experience in Korea. He is a Hindu, but
he comes every Sunday to the Sikh temple, to pray and be with
friends.
“Even though I am Hindu, I come here to pray,”
Chodda says. “In the Sikh community, it’s OK. Whatever you want,
it’s done freely. We are open-minded.”
The only
Hindu temple in Korea is across the street.
Chodda says the
interaction with the Korean community is minimal, even though he and
many other Punjabis speak fluent Korean.
“We do have
interaction (with the Korean community) but the thing is they are not
interested in the Sikh community,” Chodda says. But the foreign
population, including the number of Sikhs, is “increasing every
day. It will maybe double or triple in the next five years. Koreans
before were a close-minded community, with their language and
culture, but they are opening slowly.”
However, he notes
with some bitterness that there is still no anti-discrimination law
in Korea.
Vivek Singh, 24, a student who comes up every day
from Jamsil, wears a full turban and beard, unlike most of the other
Sikhs at the temple. He says he has no problems in Korea, but he
misses his family in India.
“(The temple) means a lot of
things for me,” Singh says. “This is just like family.”
By
Dave Hazzan
Dave Hazzan is a Canadian teacher and writer in
Ilsan, Gyeonggi Province. He has published extensively in Korea and
is an avid traveler. ― Ed.