Gangneung Dano Festival

June 5^th, 2011

Luckily Karjam and I arrived at the bus station 2 minutes before the bus to 전주 Jeonju. If we'd arrived even a little later we would have had to wait an hour and a half. In Jeonju we decided to use the bus from the 시외터미날 to 남부터미날 in Seoul instead of lugging our bags and ourselves to the Express Bus Terminal. Also the buses are cheaper. We left 20 minutes later for Seoul and managed to get home by about noon. At home I had to quickly deal with Photoshop for some photos of mask dance dramas that were requested by 황종욱 Hwang Jong'uk of 고성오광대 Goseong Ogwangdae. I was happy to help him, but he wanted photos of performances I'd never gotten around to processing at all. Not photos of his art, but of three others—I'm sure he has a good use for them, but I didn't ask. I'll put some of those photos before this paragraph for your enjoyment.

Eunyul Talchum

Eunyul Talchum

Yangju Byeolsandae

Yangju Byeolsandae

Yangju Byeolsandae

We headed back to the Express Bus Terminal and took a bus to 강릉 Gangneung leaving around 3:30. In Gangneung we took a local bus to the festival grounds and wandered around just a little bit before the 8 p.m. performance of 강릉 관노 가면극 Gangneung Gwanno Gamyeon'geuk which was the reason I wanted to go to the festival. Otherwise the festival seemed really commercialized, there was just this one little strip with traditional performances and demos and a TON of commercialism on both sides of the local river.

The performance was (of course) very good. I had a chat with a few students learning the Gamyeon'geuk after the show, they were of the age that could be late middle school but I suspect early high school. They were also the most enthusiastic members of the crowd. Then I talked to the man who'd acted the part of the 양반 yangban character. They have a huge building right next to the festival site dedicated as a training center. Again, as in October, the actors all seemed pretty young, with the percussionists containing the older members of the art.

We had a hellish time finding a place to stay, the whole town was full of tourists enjoying the long weekend and the festival—we ended up paying 40,000 won for a small room that should have been 20,000 won.

June 6^th, 2011

I had originally thought I might want to stay in Gangneung until the evening, but we got to the festival pretty early and decided to leave around 3 pm. I am really adverse to crowds and it was very crowded. I spent more than an hour watching a shamanic ceremony/performance sitting in a sea of short-haired permed grandmothers. It was actually really interesting to watch them, but the shaman was also fairly spectacular, a woman with a large number of disciples and a very good 장구 janggu player who she interacted with. Both sides of the altar had young festival workers/volunteers stationed with vacuums. They were kept constantly busy vacuuming drifting ash out of the air after people had burned a prayer at the altar.

I then watched two entire entrants in the 농악nongak (pungmul) music competition, both groups were quite similar to each other and I was not enormously impressed with them, but I was happy to see how many people were ardently engaged with Korean traditions, so I guess I should keep my judgments of their 상모 sangmo ability to myself.  

I also got to see some girls doing 열뒤기 (jumping standing see-saw). They were amazing. Back flips in the air and landing smack on the board and repeat. Seriously.

Our bus back to Seoul was stuck in serious return to Seoul after holiday weekend traffic. 

Still Recording Karjam's CD

June 1^st, 2011

Karjam had another long day in the studio, but he essentially finished his part of the CD. In the evening we were so exhausted we had lunch in a restaurant before we made it home.

June 2^nd, 2011

I had a surprising experience today. 허창열 Heo Changyeol had invited me to a critique forum for 더 광대 The Gwangdae's latest production, 홀림 낚시 Hollim Nakkshi. I thought that a critique forum sounded unlikely and pictured The Gwangdae players and their friends sitting around talking about the show. I was wrong. Changyeol and most of the members were present, as were various staff members associated with the show, but there were also a large number of participants in the forum with no direct link to the players. The forum, only offering some drinks and snacks (not even grand snacks, just "Ode" bars and "Dr Yoo" brownies and that type of thing), occurred in a large airy building in Daehangno. The room filled with approximately 14 commenters in addition to the staff and players, and a coordinator outlined a schedule of 7 items- we would discuss overviews, good points, bad points and then at the end the players and staff would be able to open their mouths and answer questions or address the critiques they'd heard.  Two and a half hours later I left to hit the bank before it closed, but by that time I had heard enormously deep and detailed critique of every aspect of the show. I was really impressed and amazed.

In the evening I worked on the computer.

June 3^rd, 2011

Karjam and I woke up and took a bus to 전주 Jeonju where we toured the 한옥마을 Hanok Village and then met Bonnie for dinner. Her husband Curtis was at a work dinner, but we caught up with him at home.

Jeonju and Daegu

April 21^st, 2011

Mom and I woke up early and went to 광화문 Gwanghwamun area to catch a special free tourist bus to 전주 Jeonju. These buses, which go to 경주 Gyeongju and 부산 Busan as well, are widely advertised as a great way to get foreigners a chance to see things outside of Seoul. A lot of foreign residents in Korea pan them because you can't ride the bus in the opposite direction if you wanted to go to Seoul for a day or a few. However I think it's a pretty good idea to get people around the country if they're just visiting Korea for a short trip. There are several ways in which the system is not so good, though. First of all it's not done on a first come, first served basis. It's done on a lottery system. I entered our names a couple weeks ago and got a confirmation email. Then I waited. I didn't see any other email, so on the 20^th I got on the internet and went to the site where I entered our passport numbers and it said "reservation confirmed" and it also showed that there were (unless I was totally misunderstanding) still tickets available on the bus. But when we checked in at the site they said that we had not 'won' tickets (although every other name of every other person and the person(s) accompanying them on the list had 'won' tickets). I protested that we'd seen a confirmation email but never seen any other follow up email such as a 'sorry, you didn't win, try again' email. The young lady was apologetic and explained that she often gets people with the same complaint but there is nothing she can do; her job is just to check people in not to send emails related to the program. Fortunately some people who had 'won' seats didn't show up, so mom and I were able to get on the bus after all but it was a bit stressful and I had lots to say about how bad it made Korea look to foreign tourists if they experience something as confusing as that.

In Jeonju (and this is basically why I even decided to go) the bus took us to the 한옥 hanok village; an area of Jeonju where traditional style one story buildings made of wood with tile roofs are still common. We walked around the streets, and checked out the scenery, a couple 한지 hanji (paper) making workshop/factories and their associated gift shops, a calligraphy museum, some other craft halls and had a marvelous lunch. Overall I found the area too developed for tourism—it was a bit gross how much of it was predicated on rapidly relieving the visitors of their money. Most of the tourists, of course, were domestic, including several school groups, but I started feeling really claustrophobic and uncomfortable. The best part of the entire Jeonju experience (except for the lunch which was just the type of ordinary home-cooking I love) was our visit to the 경기전 Gyeonggijeon with a shrine for 태조 Taejo, the founder of the dynasty. The inside of Gyeonggijeon was just as run over with visitors but the area was far larger and the birds were chirping, the sun shining and the new leaves were practically unfurling as we watched.

We took a taxi to the Express Bus Terminal and took the 3:10 bus to 대구 Daegu, arriving  shortly before 6:00. We took another taxi to my 합기도 Hapkido studio and we spent the rest of the evening there until I felt that mom would turn into a pumpkin if I didn't take her to Georgy and Jinhong's and a bed. At Hapkido I led class (it was a day to focus on kicks) and had a pretty good time. It was fun that mom got see the 관장님instructor 15 years after she first met him.

April 22^nd, 2011 Earth Day

I'm afraid I didn't do anything special for Earth Day. I guess I just have to say "every day is Earth Day!" In the morning I made pancakes for the four of us. Jinhong took mom to see some things and I worked on an application while Georgy made cupcakes (I had given her a cupcake cookbook because she loves cupcakes). After a lunch that Jinhong made I went to the post office to send my application (Jinhong drove me to a print shop and the post office, so sweet), and mom and Georgy went fabrics shopping at the traditional market.

I went back to 합기도 Hapkido and stayed there until 10:45. It was a test day so I mostly helped run the test, but I got some exercise in as well. When I got back to Georgy and Jinhong's only the latter was still awake.