[Cityscapes] Spiritual feeding for Ninjalicious, patron saint of urbex

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CityscapesSpiritual feeding for Ninjalicious, patron saint of urbex

Posted : 2019-08-20 18:40

Updated : 2019-08-22 11:32

Two urban explorers bow in an impromptu sacrificial ceremony offering food and drunks to Ninjalicious, held in an abandoned building on Aug. 23, 2015, his 10-year death anniversary. / Courtesy of Ron Bandun

By Ron Bandun

The spirit of a particularly renowned urban explorer may have found itself drawn back to Earth in 2015, on the 10th anniversary of his death. But it was drawn toward Korea, a nation distant to where Jeff Chapman had ever known.

But this beckoning force, emanating from western Seoul, offered food and drink, and it seemed to be coming from inside an abandoned building, so maybe this particular spirit succumbed to curiosity, as he likely was privy to during his lifetime, Sept. 19, 1973 to Aug. 23, 2005.

Better known as Ninjalicious, he is remembered to this day as sort of a godfather of urban exploration (UE). Ninj, based in Toronto, Canada, published the zine Infiltration and the UE guide "Access All Areas," and was a foundational member of UER.ca, the website that came to define the UE movement.

I actually didn't know Ninjalicious, having joined UER shortly after he passed away. But I am deeply aware of how his influence has changed my life.

He contracted bile duct cancer, possibly as a direct result of his adventures, but rather than scare him off, his time at the hospital only made him more eager to explore institutionalized environments before his death at age 31. Without his legacy, you might not have this column being published today. Those Russians might not have come to Korea to climb Lotte World Tower during construction. The whole rooftopping thing might not have happened, or could have happened a few years later than it did, or occurred with less than the solid ethical framework that urban explorers today observe.

So in summer 2015, when the 10th anniversary of his death was approaching, I came up with the idea to do something special to mark the occasion. I would hold a Korean-style "jesa" ceremony in honor of a man I had never met, who had never set foot in Korea.

A bottle of unopened "garbage yakju," recovered from the curb / Courtesy of Ron Bandun/2019-08-18(코리아타임스)

My reasons for doing this were twofold: to show our small local urbex community that we are a part of a global network, one which owes its existence to this guy, and also to send a message around the world that, yes, Korea has urbex, and we have our own distinct Korean way of doing it here.

Korean funerary and ancestral rituals have always fascinated me, as they are chock full of traditional customs, moreso than modern weddings. The first time I saw pieces of fruit with the tops sliced off, I had to know more.

I picked out the area where we would perform the ritual, an abandoned neighborhood slated for demolition, now the site of Hongje Central I-Park Apartment complex in northwestern Seoul.

I looked online for instructions on performing a jesa, eventually deciding to wing it. I cleaned out my refrigerator and repurposed many of the foods for the ceremony. This included some frozen Andong mackerel, various cereals and a half bottle of cheap soju a friend had abandoned at my apartment.

Prior to the event I studied up on jesa rituals, including how to arrange the food which is quite intricate. Around the same time I also found an unopened ceramic bottle of yakju, traditional Korean alcohol, left at the curb somewhere in Gajwa-dong, probably disposed because the cork had snapped off inside the neck.

The day before, we scouted around for the perfect site, a room in an abandoned three-story building, and on the day of the anniversary, I had all the food prepared, candles, a table for the ritual, even a piece of paper with Ninjalicious written in Hanja.

Six of us showed up at the site, laid out the table and set about arranging the sacrificial items ― from left to right going from least red to most red.

During this process, the door opened and a neighborhood evictee entered. We explained our intentions to him and he left us alone, thankfully.

I had no idea how to perform a jesa, just what it looked like. So I took the various pieces of fruit and sliced the tops off them. We took turns bowing. And the youngest guy in our group took a chance and tasted the garbage yakju, at which point I dared to also take a swig. It was dark, sludgy, syrupy, and tasted like highly alcoholic medicine, maybe with licorice or jujube.

A table displays impromptu sacrificial items and a copy of Ninjalicious' book "Access All Areas," with the author's name written in Hanja. / Courtesy of Ron Bandun

When it was over, I burned the "Ninja-flavored" paper and lent the book to

Ninj strikes me as the kind of guy who would have appreciated this unique event, and I believe word got back to his family.

His 14th anniversary death is this Friday, and we have no plans to repeat the ceremony. Maybe next year, for his 15th, we'll be ready to nourish his spirit once again.

Ron Bandun is a self-described "anarchaeologist."

JRonBandun@gmail.com