Nonghwarl - Farming Life

During my last few days in Korea I went on this school sponsored trip to the countryside. I went with Tte, the drumming club I had participated in all semester, but the point of the trip was not to drum but to interact and help the farmers with various tasks. I thought this farming initiative was a really good idea because it showed students first hand where their food comes from and part of the process of food production. Students can choose to participate in this farming initiative and generally go with a club or major department. So, this farming program is a nation wide program at most universities. It started in the 1980s due to the pro-democratic students movement. (I wrote a paper on this for my anthro class as a form of alternative consumption). Some of the regular protocall is for Nonghwarl participants to go around the village on the first few days and go door to door and make personal introductions and tell the residents about the festival/feast on the last day - basically make our presence known. I thought this was really nice for to make contact with people and talk to them face to face. There are also certain roles/positions students must take-on, such as being in charge of the food, and making sure that work is split evenly among genders. I had a really interesting discussion with one of my frineds Eunji, who was to ensure and enforce gender equality. She told me that this position was created because often times farmers are of a different generation and the program wanted to ensure that the women did not get stuck doing all the housework while the guys went to the fields. She told me before this, it had never consciously occured to her that tasks were split by gender roles. In preparation for her role she read a handbook put out by a (very small but vocal) femanist group at Yonsei. It was like a big revelation to her. Which was really interesting for me to witness. We also talked about gay issues, which are just starting to come to light in Korea. It was a very enlightening talk.

The morning of our departure, everyone showed up to the club room around 10:30 am to get everything ready. There were lines and lines of coach buses parked along the street for students to take. We brought all of our bags and drums etc out to load onto the bus. The bus ride was maybe three hours long. We got to a location near all of the farming villages and had an orientation presentation. We watched a video on food production in Korea and around the world. The presenter talked much about the FTA conflict which was currently going on in Korea (between Korea and the US). However, everything was in Korea so I got kind of bored and REALLY fidgity...

After the presentation, we were handed two t-shirts, a blow-up pillow, a small towel, and a farming hat, all provided by Yonsei University. Then we met with the farmers that were going to take us back to their village. There were a bunch of farmers from the surrounding area in blue pick-up trucks there to take us and our bags back. I got to ride in the back of a pick-up!!! I was so excited, because that is totally illegal in the US. haha!

getting ready to go out into the fields

We arrived at our village site. We were staying in the village center, which was a small brick building. When we got there there were a few children and a dog waiting for us. The farmers showed us in and we unpacked all of our gear (bags, food, and drums).

where we stayed

The village center had an open room which became the hangout room/eating area. There were two rooms, one off to the left and one off to the right and these were the designated sleeping areas, the girls on the left and the guys on the right. The guys room was separated by sliding rice paper panels and the girls room by a door. We generally keep the guys room open to making our hangout area larger.

in the common area

We were to help the farmers out with various farming tasks. Some people went into the fields to help harvest and clear out plants to make way for the new crops while others stayed back to cook and clean the house. The first day of work I went out to the strawberry farms to help clear strawberry plants. One of the farmers came to get us and we walked along a dirt road until we got to his greenhouse. We were all dressed in our farming attire; long pants, our farming t-shirts, work gloves, and our farming hats. He showed us how to pull out the strawberry plants, some of which still had red ripe strawberries on them. He told us we could eat them if we wanted. It was really hot and steamy in there, as the place was covered in plastic tarp. I started pulling out plants, which were prickly. I realized I was getting hives all over my arms and I couldn't breath very well. I tried to ignore it but it got worse and worse until I was having an asthma attack (I haven't had one in ages). Finally I had to go back. Thus, was my short lived farming experience. We decided I could stay at the house and help with the cooking and cleaning. Groups were supposed to alternate, but I would remain a constant at the house. I got to cook a lot which was an experience, and good preparation for my summer job - fun!!!

doing laundry

I cooked with one of the members Mangsa first; everyone rotated, taking turns cooking meals. I am pretty sure it was his first time in a kitchen, let along cooking!!! The meals were already planned out with cooking instructions, so we just had to prepare it. Our meal was potato soup, rice, panchan or side dishes which were already prepared, and fried eggs. Everyone went out into the fields leaving us to the cooking. It took us about 20 minutes and 3 phone calls just to figure out how to turn the gas on for the stove... Our soup was totally guess and check. The village children, particually one girl who was about 10 years old, who liked to hangout with us helped A LOT!!! She would come in periodically and ask us if we remembered salt etc. Mangsa started making the fried eggs. It didn't go so well. We were supposed to mix the whites and the yolk and then pour it into a pan. When it started browning, we were supposed to fold the egg and roll it up. He put concered effort into it but miserably failed - his egg ended up looking like scrambled eggs. He handed me the spatula and told me to do it. He didn't know that I'm allergic to eggs and really haven't had any experience cooking with them, but I could figure out how to say that in Korea so I gave it a try. Bingo, I got it! I now know I am an expert egg roller. : )

SooAh with two of the kids from the village

The other meal I cooked was with my friend BolBol. We were supposed to make Jajangmyun, or Chinese black noodles. We had everything all set and we realized that there was no cornstarch to thicken the sauce. We called GalSalm, the person in charge of food and he told us they'd forgotten to buy it and to make do without. It tasted fine, but was basically the consistency of water instead of a nice gravy. Oops! There were three kids hanging around that day, and they played while we cooked. They were all facinated with our electronics. Especially our cell phones. To preoccupy them so they wouldn't mess with our phones, I let them use my camera, that resulted in some pretty interesting pictures. It was cute; they were looking at the photos already on my camera. They saw a picture of Chung-gae-chun river in Seoul and one of them asked me in awe, "Is this America?"

Chung-gae-chun river in Seoul, the picture they thought was America

The gross thing about the kitchen was that there were flies EVERYWHERE!!! I have NEVER seen so many flies. There were flies all over the house, but a lot were in the kitchen. The day Mangsa and I had cooked, he had gone in the kitchen, shut the door, and spent a good 30 minutes in there swatting and killing flies. He killed everysingle on of them. He came out with a triumphant look but as soon as we started cooking, more came.

Our daily schedule was to wake up around 4:30 am (most of the time we didn't actually go to bed until 11 or 12 at night). Go outside and do group calesthetics to Avril Lavines song, "Girlfriend" coreographed by MooGong! ;)

Then we would get to work, either in the field or doing chores/cooking around the house. There were strawberry fields, melon fields, and rice patties. As for house work, we had to clean the floors with wet rags, hose out the bathrooms, sweep the front steps, tidy-up the inside, and do meal preparation. There was a mid-day break when the people working in the fields would come back. They had rest time and then we had lunch. There were lyrics to folk songs taped up on the walls and we often practiced them in preparation for the festival/feast on the 10th and final day down there; sadly, I was back in America by then. : (

Then everyone would go back out and work at bit more until dinner. Some of the village kids were always hanging around wanting to play with us. After the work was done in the evening, we would go outside and play games with them. (The boys in the village liked to play with those dung beetles that have the large black pinchers - they'd keep them in their pockets while they biked around the area) After dinner, we would have a group discussion and reflection on the days work. This part is a mandatory requirement of the program we were on. On the first day we had each received a handbook with discussion questions and charts etc. and we were supposed to go through it to discuss and fill it out. For me, this was pretty boring because it was a lot of discussion all in Korea. I remember one night sitting there; I started counting files in the room but when got to 200 I decided to stop because knowing that there were more would have been too disgusting... (we had this really cool fly killer that looks like a tennis racket and when it makes contact with a bug it zaps them. I actually bought one on my trip back in October for my dad^^).

look at that asian glow, hehe.

On one night, the farmers we were working with as well as their children came over after dinner to socialize. Everyone sat around in a circle and passed around watermelon and makoli (mmm... my favorite drink...). We sang the folk songs and chatted. It was really fun, but one of the kids from our group (one that I had never met before because he was a pretty in-active member) got really drunk. I guess he did some inappropriate things to the woman sitting next to him and other people from our group had to bring him outside. I have never seen a beligerant drunk before but, he definetly fit the bill. People were trying to calm him down outside, but he wanted to come back inside. Soon after that, the party broke up. All of the adults went home, but the village kids were still hanging around playing a game in the other room.

We started our group discussion/reflection of the day. The drunk guy was in the other room (the same room that the kids were playing in) with 비추 Bichu, who was trying to get him to go to sleep. There would be random busts of yelling. At one point, someone must have pushed the other because we heard a loud crash as someones body hit the rice paper sliding doors, which were shut. The next morning, the drunk kid (I don't know his name because I'd never met him before this trip) fell asleep at breakfast. I think he was really embarassed because he wouldn't look at anyone. Then later, he up and left. By the time people had figured out he had actually left to take a bus back to Seoul, not just wandered some where near by, he was gone.

Later, I found out that the kids were really scared. Honestly, I don't know why they let them stay there... and he had punched Bichu. Yikes.

I think the oddest thing was everyone in Tte didn't know I was adopted from Korea. I had told Dahwa, and word travels fast in that group, so I guess I just assumed everyone knew. Well, I was wrong. The night before I was to leave, it some how came up and everyone found out. All of the girls were so suprised! and HAPPY! wow. They were saying things like, "we liked you before, but now we like you even better!" Given they were saying it in their second language, it was like their fondness of me grew ten fold. It shows how nationalistic Koreans are, in a good way. It seems odd to Americans, but it really matters to Koreans. It's not that they dislike foreigners, but if you are Korean they have an automatic affinity with you. Anyhow, I was talking to one of my friends SooAh and she was saying how she still couldn't believe that I was born in Korea. She say something like, "Wow, now I wanna know what you would have been like if you'd grown up in Korea." She is completely fluent in English because she grew up in Indonesia. I said, "Well, you didn't grow up in Korea either. Don't you wonder what you would be like if you'd grown up here?" She hadn't thought of that. Haha!

Nonghwarl was a great experience. I had so much fun and learned a lot, from how to cook/improvise in the kitchen, to how to kill flies by the hundreds, to the lyrics of traditional folk songs.

Right before I left to go back to Seoul and then America - goodbye!!!

JEJUDO

Last Friday was a national holiday so we had no school. Three of my friends and I had planned a trip to Jeju Island, this small island off the Southwest coast of Korea. It is pretty tropical down there; they have palm trees and mountains. We were planning on taking the train to the harbor and a ferry from the harbor to Jeju-do. So, we left Friday morning to catch our train to the ferry port. We took the subway from Sinchon to the train station and caught our train. We took a slower train because the fast train was sold out - it took about five hours to get down the the ferry port. It was pretty fun, but we mostly slept. We got in at 1 o'clock and our boat was supposed to leave at 1:30. We didn't know where the actual harbor was, so we asked these Europeans and kind of pointed us in the right direction. We had to walk there and we finally got to the building and found out that there were TWO buildings! and we of course, were at the wrong one. So, we ran over to the other building. When we got there, the people working there were waving at us telling us to go away. We missed our boat by two minutes... We went and asked the ticket lady what we should do and she was not nice. We called our travel agent and she talked to the ticket lady, who then got really ticked off. She told us the next boat was the next morning at 9 am.

a book vending machine

We didn't know what to do so we sat there at the port for a long while.... just dinging around. Then we got hungry and decided to find something to eat. We started walking around with all our luggage trying to find a restaurant. We found one and almost everything had seafood; eew! I ordered bibimbap which is just rice, veggies, and beef. Pretty safe - I've eaten it millions of times. The waitress asked me if it was okay because there of the beef - Koreans are all hyped up about mad cow disease. I was like yeah its fine. When it arrive at our table I looked down and I saw a big pile of raw beef. My friends said my eyes popped out of my head and I looked really upset. haha. The lady kindly took the meat back and cooked it for me; it still tasted weird though.

hanging out at the ferry terminal...

We wandered around the city for a gazillion hours, dragging our luggage. Finally, we were so exhausted we gave in and got a taxi to drop us off at the movie theater so we could sit and not do anything. However once we got there we decided maybe it would be smarter to just spend our money on a motel instead. So, two went out looking for one and my friend Caroline and I stayed back with the luggage. We went into a Popeyes (yes, they have Popeyes) and we actually fell asleep waiting there. Our friends took forever looking; finally they came back and told us little kids were showing them around! haha. We decided to watch a movie, Kungfu Panda, and then go find our motel. Yes, thats right. we hauled all our luggage into the movie theater with us. Vianey was so tired (she had pulled an all nighter the night before shopping at Dongdaemun) that she curled up in her seat and fell asleep. Afterwards, we walked around until we found a motel. Just to make sure we weren't getting ripped off Vianey and I ran around to three other motel checking prices; everything was pretty comparable. We checked into the Silk Road Motel (aka love motel) which had a vending machiene that included condoms on the way up the stairs. There was one perfectly round bed in the room; we all decided it was safer to sleep on the floor. After we got situated, around 11 pm we went out for dinner and ended up eating hobak pizza (pumpkin pizza) which was probably the most delicous pizza I've had here! Even better than koguma (sweet potato) because it had koguma on it as well! The next day we got up and headed off to Jeju!!! Our ferry left at 9 am and we made sure we were there with plenty of time. Our ferry was AWESOME!! We kind of think they upgraded us because of the mixup, but it had a noraebang, snack/restaurant area, a sauna, giftshop etc. It was like a mini cruise boat. We had fun exploring, eating and sleeping. We got to Jejudo about five hours later and were hounded by taxi drivers the second we stepped out of the station. one talked us into taking a taxi to our hotel, which was on the other side of the island!!! We thought that the boat terminal and the ferry terminal were near each other... oops! We checked into our hotel and sat for a while. Finally we dragged our sorry butts out to do some sight seeing. we were really tired. We wandered around and were too stingy to pay 1,000 won to see a waterfall... Vianey tried to sneak in - she was successful, but the rest of us were too chicken, so she had to come back out. haha. We ended up finding a really cool beach with lots of neat rocks (and sea cockroaches... ) and we played around there for a few hours. That was lots of fun! Afterwards we got hungry and went in search of dinner. We found orange flavored Jeju steambuns which were good, and then we went and ate Korean later. The next day we decided we should get up really early to see the sunrise at this famous mountain on the east coast of the island. By using her fingers, Vianey estimated that it would take us aprox. 2 and a half hours to get there by bus or taxi. We we woke up at 1:30 am (after going to bed at 11:30) and caught a cab at 2 am. The hotel concierge told us that we could take a bus, but he was wrong. There were def. no buses running at that time of night. we got in the taxi and told the drive where we wanted to go and he told us it would take 40 min!!! oops. He dropped us off at a 24 hour convenient store (GS25) which was the only thing open there. We were sitting on the curb looking really pathetic when the police drove up and dropped off another foreigner there to wait until the sun rose. haha. So we hung out in the store for a few hours until it was time to climb the mountain. We climbed the mountain-man was that a work out. Vianey and I silently climbed while Caroline and Emily followed us laughing their butts off the entire way up! We got to the top and sat down amongst the crowd of native Koreans and foreigners and waited. And waited. And waited... Too bad it was CLOUDY!!! so, we never got to see the sunrise. It was supposed to be up around 5 am, and we hopefully waited until 6 or so. On the way down it started to rain and we took a bunch of cool pics. By the time we got to the bottom it started to pour! We wandered around the town trying to find a taxi, but there were none! we called our previous taxi driver but he was long gone and couldn't make it back for an hour or so. Finally we found the one existing taxi in the area. The driver was so awesome! We told him to take us some place fun. So he took us to the northern coast. On the way there, as a service, he stopped at a rock statue garden and let us get out and take pics. There was also Mystery Road which is an optical illusion. If you put your car in neutral it looks like it is going up hill by itself, even though the road is actually slanting down. At 8 am he dropped us off at Hallim Park which was a botanical garden/bird park. Its kind of like Butterfly World in FL without the butterflies... That was actually really fun. we stayed there for four hours! Afterwards we walked down the road to the beach. But we were all really hungry for lunch so we walked around trying to find a restaurant that served normal, non-seafood food. Very hard to find. We walked and walked til we found one and man was it good! Em and I had kimchee bokumbap (kimchee fried rice) and Vianey and Caroline had bulgogi topbap (bulgogi and rice). YUM!!!! Then we went to the beach and played around. We took a gazillion pics and a gazillion and one jump shots! Afterwards, as we were leaving Vianey realized she lost her camera. Sad! We went back to look for it but couldn't find it. We have our suspicions about this large family, but who knows. It started raining again. We caught a taxi to the chocolate museum on the west coast of the island. It was VERY weird, but we just needed someplace out of the rain. Plus we were all slap happy so it was quite entertaining. Finally, we decided to go back to our hotel. We caught a cab and went back. We made it around the entire perimeter of the island in one day. The next day we had to leave. We got up and packed up our stuff and made it to the airport on time. Yay! oddly, a few of us made it through security with bottles or water and other liquids, some of them in plain view! We got back around 11 am. We all had class at 1, but I didn't go. The End.

UPDATE: Daegu, Daejon, Nanta and the likes...

Quick update.

DAEGU

Two weeks ago my friend Emily and I went to Daegu and Seongju. Turns out both of our birthmoths' are from the same town, Seongju, which is outside of Daegu (Korea's third largest city). We decided to take a day trip to save money on lodging etc. so we left at 5:30 am and got back to Seoul at 10:30 pm. It was really fun! we took the Saemaeul train (one of the slower, cheaper trains) down to Daegu and then a bus to Seongju. We got to Daegu and couldn't figure out how to get to Seongju! We walked out of the subway exit and saw a long line of idol taxis but no buses. I walked up to one of the taxi drivers to see where to catch a bus. He told us that it was better to take a taxi because the buses didn't go to Seongju very frequently and we would have to wait a while. While he was talking to us, all the other taxi drivers crowded around us; we were surrounded by 10 middle aged men, all telling us their opinions and arguing with each other. haha. We ended up taking a taxi. Our taxi driver drove so fast! Like a Seoul taxi driver, but we were on windy country roads and there was actually space for him to get somewhere! Yikes! We got to Seongju and the driver dropped us off at the Civil Affairs building... I don't know why. We were both feeling pretty car sick after the ride, so we plopped down on the side of the steps. I'm sure we looked odd - Emily sprawled out and me sitting there in a daze. After a while we got up and wandered around. There really isn't much there. We ended up eating at the same restaurant that I ate at with Mom and Sarang two years ago! (same table too!) After lunch we decided we'd explored enough and decided to head back to Daegu. We bought our bus and tried to figure out which bus was our; there were two buses back. The bus driver figured out we were foreigners and told us to wait for the other bus. When that bus arrived he told the driver where we wanted to go. How nice! There were also two halmonis (grandmas) who were really intent on helping us. They were so sweet! but I had no idea what they said. While we were on the bus I offered them some Choco Pies. So, Em and I were sitting on the bus minding our own business (we were both writing stuff) and all of a sudden the two grandmas and the bus driver start talking, pointing telling us to get off the bus. We were so caught off guard, we grabbed our stuff and ran off the bus. As the bus pulled away, we were like "wait, where are we???" They had misunderstood and thought we wanted to go to the subway station... We actually just wanted to go to the main part of Daegu to look around.

...we got a little lost...

They dropped us off in a suburbish area of Daegu at the end of the subway line. We stood there where the bus had dropped us off for a good five minutes while Emily finished writing her letter and just looking around until this lady who had been riding the same bus as us came up and pointed us in the right direction. We ended up taking the subway into downtown Daegu and then we wandered around there for a while. It was really fun! We were seriously impressed by how clean everything was! The subway station was empty and immaculate! It was a good day.

DAEJON

Two Saturdays I went to Daejon to visit our family friends, the Kim family. I went after my samulnori classes because it was my last class before our final performance, so I felt like I ought to go. I took the bus from Seoul to Daejon. It was really nice to see them! and really fun. Danny, their son who is my age was home for summer vacation, so we hung out. We went to dinner, watched TV, took a walk, ate breakfast, and lunch. I ate so much! haha. We went to this really weird restaurant that had lots of odd rocks, fossils, sculptures, and a mini pirate ship?... It was just really nice to chill and relax. It was funny because before bed Sunny, the mom, asked me what time I normally get up in the morning. I didn't want to seem really lazy, so I underestimated a little and said 8:30ish... I didn't want to seem like a slug or something, because I was the guest. But she told me, "we sleep til 10, so please get up at 10." In my head I was like "YES!!!" I was so happy. I think I got 11 hours of sleep that night! it was wonderful.

NANTA

Last week I finally got to see the Nanta Performance!!! It is a non-verbal performance using cooking utensils and is extremely famous in Korea. Its been running for over 10 years! It was so cool! They use samulnori and poonmgulnori rhythms and beat them out with knives, brooms, cooking pots and pans etc. It was so awesome. I recognized a lot of the beats too! I think my favorite part was the ending. They used Sang-mo hats (the ribbon hats) under a black light to that they showed up in florescent orange and green! It was pretty sweet looking.

SAMULNORI PERFORMANCE

Last Saturday was my final performance for my Samulnori class. It went pretty well and was lots of fun! As I've said in previous entries, I've been taking Saturday samulnori classes at the National Center for the Korean Traditional Performing Arts. We played YongNam, which Shinparam, the MN group also plays. So, it wasn't a new piece, but the way we played had some differences, which I kept messing up on because I was used to something different! I couldn't keep straight which variations I was supposed to play for this piece, and I kept playing things that we play in our MN version... I managed to playing it through correctly for the first time during our performance; whew! My friend was in the beginning gayageum class and she did a great job! She got to wear a pretty hanbok and we wore samulnori chibok.

HAGGLING

This past week my friends and I went to TechnoMart to try and buy electronic dictionaries. They are pretty pricey, but one of our other friends had bought one there for a decent price after haggling quite a bit with the salesperson. We spent over an two hours walking around going stall to stall checking and comparing prices, and haggling. We finally ended up with three dictionaries (I need to buy one for my neighbor). I got back and realized the menus did not change into English... Gr... I want them to change so it would be easier to use. So the next day we went back and spent another hour there haggling with the salesman trying to get a decent deal for different dictionaries. Apparently, only the more expensive ones switch to English. How unfortunate! We finally wore the guy down enough, and ourselves that we struck a deal! yay!!! It was the most haggling I've done this entire trip. I tried to look and sound really nice and cute and desperate.

!!!AKARAKA!!!

AKARAKA was so much fun! It was crazy how many people there were! I heard aprox. 10,000 people; almost ten times as many people there as students at Beloit! haha. Emily and I met 토 (Ghetto) and 뽈뽈 (SooAh) at ttebang at 12:30 and then we went to lunch. We went to a donkasu restaurant which was good and then we had ice cream. yum! At 3 pm, everyone who wanted to go to AKARAKA with tte met at ttebang. I think people tend to go with their major departments. People's majors here are kind of their friend groups too. I was talking to 개토 and he said that he chose a club and his major; so things he might otherwise do with his major he does with tte (his chosen club). So, not everyone from tte was there, but a fair number. We headed over to the stadium. This is what it looked like as we waited in line to get into the stadium. We got into the stadium and went to find our seats. Each club/major had an assigned area they were supposed to sit in, but people were sitting in our area, so we (well, not me per say...) had to negotiate with the group in front and behind us to get our spot.

!tte people!

I stood by 뽈뽈 who explained what was going on and showed me what to do. She brought her friend from Korea University, which is Yonsei's biggest rival. Her friend wore a blue shirt, but there were pockets of red here and there from Korea University kids coming to "disrupt" AKARAKA. Really, I swear they were there to have fun; they didn't do anything. We were there from 3 pm to 10:30 pm, when the show ended. In the beginning there were some performances by Yonsei students, including a dance group with one of our fellow CIEE friends!

go Andrew! he is in the back.

They actually showed a PowerPoint before the main events started! Yonsei has an actual AKARAKA cheer team (akaraka is actually the name of the cheer group)!!! They're extremely enthusiastic and wear funny costumes. I heard from someone that its very rigorous and most people can only withstand one year; they go through a highly selective selection process, and if you have that you were an AKARAKA cheer person on your resume, you're almost guaranteed the job. I'm not sure if thats entirely true, but its a very highly esteemed position.

They taught the crowd a few new cheers, and lead a few others. Then the big name singers came out: Jewelry, VOS, Big Bang, Sonyashidae (Girls Generation), 45rpm, Sweet Sorrow, Gummy, JYP (Pak JinYoung), and others. I only knew of Big Bang, JYP, and Sonyashidae... It was funny because there are two people in our drumming group who are going out. When Shonyashidae came out the guy got sooo excited and everyone jokingly said his girlfriend should cover his eyes. Then when Big Bang came out, the girl started screaming and jumping up and down, and switched spots with someone so she could see better.

Girls Generation

These singers are some of the most famous/popular singers in Korea. According to my roommate Pang who is a huge HUGE HUGE K-Pop fan, Big Bang is bigger than N'Sync or Britney Spears ever was - they've been number one on the music charts for weeks.

Big Bang

My favorite part was the cheering. It was really fun. Everyone knows the cheers, so it was a stadium of approximately 10,000 people doing the same cheers at the same time. For each cheer they would have the lyrics projected onto the screen on the front stage and everyone sang and did the actions. If you didn't know the actions, you could look around and copy someone or look at the cheer group on stage, who were also doing the actions with large grandiose movements in really odd faux renaissances costumes - the theme this year was Renaissance in Yonsei.

look at their kooky costumes!!! haha. They were so serious too!

~The End~

대동제, 몽몽이 aka Dog Meat, and 짐질방!

Hi!!

Wow, so I'm done! We had our poongmul performance today for Yonsei's spring festival (대동제). It was soooooooo much fun! These past two weeks which lead up to our performance were by far the highlight of my study abroad experience. In total we had approximately 54 hours of practice from March 28-May 13th, plus our performance was about two and a half hours. whew. It was a huge time commitment, and I admit at times a bit hard to keep to. I only missed one practice and that was to go out to dinner with my Korean class. I was to scared to miss, plus, I really did want to go, but our whole class was going out. So, our Korean teacher called Dahwa, the president of 떼 "tte" and told her that we had to miss! I love everyone in tte!!! They're all so nice, friendly, and TALENTED! It's insane how good some of them are! and they learn from other students and sunbae (former students!).

***

Anyhow, I'll back up a bit to explain my title. So, this past Monday (May 12) was a holiday (Buddha's Birthday) so we didn't have class. Sunday night I met up with my friend Stella (Korean) and we decided to go to 짐질방 (JimJilBang - kind of a bath house/spa). It requires that one be naked in front of others, which I wasn't so sure about... but I decided I ought to suck it up and give it a try. I'd heard really good things about them. So, Stella and I walked to one my friends had seen near our apt. but it was really sketchy. It was small and empty. We paid the guy and walked in, but Stella changed her mind and told the man we wanted our money back! He gave it to us, which surprised me. I called one of my friends who recommended one near Yonsei. We were close to Ewah University and so we walked all the way over to the East Gate of Yonsei which is where it was supposed to be. Except... it was past there. We ended up asking six different people for directions and wandering around for an hour. One of the people we asked was this middle aged woman shaking her laundry out of her window! It was pretty funny. We, meaning Stella and the lady, had a conversation through this lady's window while she folded laundry. We finally made it! It was so nice! It was only W9,000 (apx. $10) and you can stay as long as you want. We walked in and received our clothes (matching shirt and pants). Deposited our shoes in a locker and headed down to the changing room. The changing room and bath room (literally, where the bathes are) is where one must be naked. It was weird! There were women working there at the front manning the desk and selling snacks etc. They were fully clothed, but they were working in a room full of clothed, half clothed, and naked women. I was self-conscious and not really willing to be naked in front of everyone, but I went for it. Stella was already completely undressed by the time I decided to start unbuttoning my pants. The thing is, its completely normal to everyone so no was paying the slightest attention to me, and no one looks at other people. We showered and got into a tub. It was really nice! Very relaxing. Then we got dressed in our jimjilbang clothes and went upstairs to where the snack bar and restaurant were. We ordered PatBingSoo - shaved ice/red bean dessert (팥빙수) and Shikye - sweet rice drink(식혀). Both were delicious! Then we went to the sauna. I don't like saunas, but I was trying to be agreeable to maximize my experience. haha. It was so cool! We walked into this room which was pretty cool (temp. wise). There was a pile of sandals at the entrance. We each slipped a pair one and went down. There were people sitting/lying on wooden platforms around little grills chatting, sleeping, and eating. There were four small tent-ish looking things next to the wall. Turns out they were the entrances to various temperature saunas. They look like a small Bedouin tent might look. They're was a dark colored blanket covering each entrance. We chose the medium temperature sauna and walked in. It was dim in there; only one mining light was one. The floor was made of wooden planks and the walls and ceiling looked like they were made out of mud. It was HOT! and silent. No one was talking when we walked in. We stayed in there for a while; I surprised my self. After we went out side for a bit and then sat and talked. We bought a sweet potato and a rice cake to cook over the grill, which was fun! Everyone was so friendly. Some lady tried to make conversation with me. haha. She asked me where I was from etc. There was this crazy looking old lady who looked really disoriented and had a huge cut on her head; I asked Stella if she was okay. When Stella asked her the lady flipped! and got all mad and got up and left... weird. The next day was Buddha's Bday and I was bound and determined to go to a temple. Emily and I were planning to go together, and coincidentally, this jimjilbang was right next to the temple in Sinchon. Stella suggested I just sleep at the jimjilbang and get up the next morning to go the temple, so I called Emily around 1 am to see if she wanted to come to JimJilbang. I called her while I was sitting in a 76 degree Celsius room (WOW! I just got on line to see what temp that is in Fahrenheit and its 168.8). Oy! Emily came and we cooked another sweet potato and some normal potatoes, and went into one of the rooms again. We hung around for a while and decided to got to bed around 3ish. There were sleeping rooms. BAD IDEA! There were too many people in there and I swear, it was like a snoring chorus! At one point someone else in there yelled 시끄럽다! shup-up! and the snoring stopped for a good 10 seconds before someone started again... haha. I lay there for a good 4 hours but didn't sleep a wink. At 6 I decided I'd had enough. I woke up Emily and told her we ought to just go to the temple now and then go back home and try to sleep a bit. people heading up to the temple Originally, we were going to sleep there, get up around 9, go to the temple and then go to ttebang to meet the drumming group for lunch. Instead, we went to the temple at 6 am. Took a few pics, half a sleep and then took a taxi back and crashed for four hours. The temple was gorgeous and I wish I had been awake enough to enjoy it!

***

LUNCH with TTE Emily and I went go up four hours later to go to lunch with 때 "tte". We met at 떼방 the room at 11. Emily and I fell asleep on the floor until 11:30, when the group left. We went to a restaurant that serves 삼개탕 (boiled chicken) and 몽몽이 dog meat! (hmmm.... dog or bird flu?...) One the way there some of the people were trying to explain to us what we were going to eat. They got all embarrassed by what they were going to tell us and kept trying to figure out a nice way to break the news to us. It was funny to see them squirm and try to figure out how to say it in English.

can you guess which one is dog??? : )

We got to the restaurant; everyone was order. I'd say more than half of the group ordered dog (out of 15ish people). Emily and I decided we couldn't eat an entire order of dog, so we both got chicken, but tried the dog. There was individual orders of dog that came in some sort of stew and then there was a platter of dog in the middle of the table for people to share. Emily and I got up the nerve and each tried a piece. It was funny because we psyched ourselves up so much that we just popped the piece in our mouth; the people at our table were like "oh... you're supposed to dip it in the sauce." So, we tried another piece dipped in the sauce. It was ok... It was a brownish, slightly grey color; not good and not bad. It tastes like how it smells and the meat is really soft and tender. Afterwards, we went back to tte and had practice.

***

Tuesday evening tte was in the parade to kick off 대동제 (our school spring festival). It was really fun. We just played some simple things as we weaved our way down the street. We were in a parade with a bunch of other student clubs. At the end there was a stage where groups were playing covers of Red Hot Chili Peppers etc. Our group won third place and received a case of soju. After that we went back to our room, got changed, and had practice. I think that was the best practice we had. Everything went really smoothly and was lots of fun!

It was Ome's birthday that night - she got caked. The other pic is of a bunch of people from drumming outside on campus-there were lots of food stands set up for AKARAKA.

***

The next day was our big performance!!!! I had class from 11-12 and then went straight to ttebang. We all met and ate lunch together and then got ready. We got to wear these really cool towels on our head so our big hats didn't slip around. We got ready at 1 and our performance started at 2. A bunch of friends from CIEE as well as our CIEE resident director came to watch! (and take pics and videos - sadly, my videos were accidentally taken in time lapse... so there's no sound and we're playing super fast. haha) It was so much fun! We started at two by parading up and down the main street. We got to our actual performance spot - in front of the library and started playing. We played til about 4ish. 1. group pic 2. tte hydrates themselves with makoli!

the snail... ugh. 너무 힘들었어!!!

After our actual performance people started adlibbing, dancing and just messing around. There were a lot of sunbaes there who borrowed peoples' instrument and started playing. This lasted for another 20 minutes or so. Then I headed back to get changed. Luckily I went straight to the bathroom to get changed and had my hat with me. When I got back most of the hats were on the ground and people were jumping on them, like a pile of leaves. Then they stuffed them in a huge garbage bag. I love my hat! it took me a long time to make too! but I guess they make a new hat for each performance. Someone told me last semester they made a chirstmas tree out of their old hats! Anyhow, we actually ended up going to Korean class for the last half hour. Our teacher knew we had had a performance so she wasn't upset that we were really late. After class, Emily and I went to dinner with tte. They were at a samgyupsal restaurant and we went to meet them. It was REALLY fun! we just hung out and ate. A lot of people got drunk. We had to get up and talk about how we felt about our performance. Outside the restaurant we got in a circle and they all put their arms around their neighbors shoulders and started singing some song and jumping around. Then they pushed a few people in the center and kept jumping around them and pretended to kick and step on them. (I later realized that this was one of hte AKARAKA cheers - the people in the middle are supposed to be Korea University students; Yonsei's rivals) Afterwards we went to this really neat bar. The inside had dirt floors and mats to sit on.

my hair looks a little sad in this pic-from being squished under a hat all day...

The next day was AKARAKA!