Look Mom, I'm Famous!.. (Almost)

I'm savoring my moment of stardom with the discovery this morning that my photo was featured in the Korean Herald. No, not one that I took... that would have been ridiculously cool. One that I'm in. But still, a little limelight never hurts, right? Even if it happens to be only my dismembered head sitting atop Adam's monstrous backpack. Oh yes, I believe I see a hand in there as well...

The shot is a photo taken of me, and Adam Hawkins, a friend I made at the MaskDance Festival in Andong last weekend. We were stringing small flags bearing our hand-painted wishes on a rope of twisted hemp strung near the Mask Theater. One of my friends from home asked me recently what the significance of, or the history behind, this event was. I can't really say too much about either, other than that the writing and raising of wishes is something Koreans do during a part of a number of celebrations. Often the wishes are strung around a "Wishing Tree." Here at the MaskDance festival, we hung them near wooden effigies of Hahoe masked men... our "wish protectors"?

As for my newspaper moment of fame, some of you who aren't as fluent in Korean as me are probably wondering what it might say. Actually, as I'm not in the least bit fluent, I'm still waiting on the translation... so I'll get back to you on that :)

Highlights from Andong's MaskDance Festival

I'm back from an incredible weekend in Andong and Hahoe, where the annual Maskdance Festival is still underway. And though it was short (and I missed the traditional wooden-masked dancers, too sad!), it was worth every bit of effort (which was quite a lot) to get there. There was so much to see and do, and I'll definitely plan to return next year to catch more of the action... provided I'm still here in Korea ;) (something tells me I will be).

So, in a departure from my usual type of blog post, I'm going to make this more of a photo montage, with some brief explanations for the sake of "cultural education." Here we go ~


One of many venues within the festival complex, the Mask Theater is a covered dome stadium with a stage, where international dance troupes performed throughout the weekend. Here, Russian dancers wow the audience with a Troika or two:


And more dancers, these from the Philippines (aren't those costumes fantastic?):


At another venue, near the bank of the river, a shaman (fortune teller and spiritual vessel) entrances the crowds with her hypnotic singing (note the W10,000 bills stuffed under her hat), while a skinned pig (this is real, folks) sits just outside the tent, a token symbol of good luck and prosperity. (I actually read up a bit on this, and pigs are considered such a good omen because of their portly build, which connotes abundance and wealth, and because females produce such large litters, which symbolizes fertility. A pig's head will always be found at Shamanist ceremonies and sacrifices, as well as events such as the opening of a new business, moving to a new home, or even buying a new car. Want to read more? Look here)


Kites were flying high throughout the festival. This young guy was quite a skilled kite-flyer. Over the course of several hours, he succeeded in raising one kite after the other into the air, connected on one verrrrry long string. It was quite a spectacle:

















Food vendors lined the streets in white tents, their delicious-smelling dishes spilling out into the crowds and across the streets. You could try any one of literally hundreds of snacks and dishes, including freshly grilled corn, marinated meats on skewers, miniature waffles filled with bean paste, roasted chestnuts, corn dogs with fried potato ... I even saw a doner kebab stand!!


One of my favorite activities was dipping a calligraphy brush in a pot of thin black ink and scratching my wish onto a thin strip of paper. Following the lead of the buzzing crowd, I then wedged my paper strip between the fibers of twisted hemp strung up among tall wooden statues. What did I wish for? You'll have to see for yourself:


And last but not least, the masks themselves... wooden masks, Venetian masks, masks from all over the world... masks that begged a touristy photo-stop, masks that towered over you from their lofty perches, masks printed onto balloons, embedded into stone walls... masks lining shop fronts, spilling out of vendor's displays... mask necklaces, mask wallhangings, mask puppets, mask dolls...


So, if you're in Korea at the moment, and trying to find some last-minute ideas for how to spend the upcoming three-day weekend, run -- don't walk -- to your nearest bus station and hit the road for Andong!

Want to know more about Mask Festival? Check out these links:
Andong Mask Dance Festival
The Official Website for Maskdance Festival 2008
Korean Traditional Masks

Or, to see more of my pictures, follow this link.

At Home in Hahoe Village, Maskdance Festival 2008

What do troupes of masked performers, hoards of happy onlookers, one quaint traditional village, and a shower of shimmering fireworks have in common? If you guessed the Andong Maskdance Festival, you were right :)

This weekend marked the beginning of a ten-day celebration in Andong, Korea's south-eastern Gyeongsangbuk province -- a festival to honor the tradition of the mask and its place in cultures around the world, and in Korea's history in particular. Hahoe, home of the legendary Korean wooden masks, is steeped in the folklore surrounding their creation.

According to legend:

"A series of disasters and bad luck were happening in the peaceful and beautiful Hahoe Folk Village, and all villagers were very concerned. One day, Mr. Heo, a good person from Hahoe Folk Village, dreamed about a Folk God who told him what he must do:

'You should clean your body every day and carve a set of masks with your heart -- then all disasters will disappear. But there is one strict rule: You must finish the work within 100 days and no one is allowed to see you during the time that you are making the masks.'

"So Mr. Heo started to work on the masks. He did not tell anyone else in the village about his dream. One day, a lady who lived in the same village and who loved Mr. Heo very much, his as she waited for him. She could not bear it any more at stole a glance at him. As soon as she did this, Mr. Heo fell down and died, leaving one Mask unfinished, Imae (Foolish Servant). This is why Imae Mask does not have a chin, as it was left unfinished." [note from me: can you find it in the photo to the right?]

"Villagers of Hahoe danced with the Hahoe masks (aristocrat, scholar, young bride, meddler, Buddhist monk, butcher, old widow, young woman and foolish servant) and finally danced the village back to peace. "

Even today, Hahoe is a peaceful and beautiful folk village where life seems to carry on much the same as it did centuries ago. And despite the busloads of tourists that come from around the country (and world) to sample a taste of traditional Korean life and enjoy its peaceful ambience, it maintains some semblance of authenticity, which is part of its subtle charm.

This past weekend, I had a chance to spend a chilly night and leisurely morning soaking up the special flavor of Korean culture that Hahoe serves up on a heaping platter. I arrived by bus with a group of CouchSurfers (who converged in Andong from various points around the country) Saturday night, after poking around the festival grounds. As we stepped off the bus and into the dark night, I tugged at the cuffs of my jacket, pulling them over my hands to ward off the sting of the evening chill. We walked along a quiet dirt road which followed a riverbank until we arrived at the traditional house, Hagungje #13, which was our home for the night.

Though it was dim, as we stepped into the house, muted light emanating from an open door gave us a view of the house's unusual arrangement. It was built as a series of rooms, which comprised four outer walls, all facing an inner courtyard which was exposed to the open air. Short sets of cement steps led from the ground to any of a number of rooms, most of which served as sleeping areas. I peered inside one of the rooms and was intrigued by its small size and spartan furnishings. There was enough room for four or five bodies to lay sardine-style on a hard floor, and a "yo" (traditional Korean mattress) and stack of blankets to warm us. A window at the opposite end of the room, a simple wooden frame lined with rice paper which slid along a wooden track and latched with a fabric tie, was the only other decoration.

The kitchen, set in the back corner of the house, was bustling as the old couple living in the house began to prepare our dinner. After dropping our bags and removing our shoes, we stepped into the "dining room," a large, low-lying wooden slab near the courtyard. Although the table was quite long, our group was bursting in size, and we spilled over onto two adjacent round tables, filling up the entire area with our bodies and energetic conversation. The man of the house began what turned out to be an insanely busy job of waiting on the lot of us as we feasted on platters of steaming hot and spicy "jjim dalk," Andong's signature dish -- a mixture of chicken bits, glass noodles, leeks, and near-lethal doses of hot pepper (though somehow, I didn't think our dishes were deathly spicy).

Some of the group took off for the riverbank to watch fireworks, while others (myself included) stayed behind to finish dinner and warm up under layers of blankets. I later found out that this wasn't your typical fireworks show -- it was a special affair (...and I'm still chiding myself for missing it. I suppose there's always next year...) Seonyu Julbulnori, or traditional Korean fireworks, aren't shot from the ground, as are the festive explosions we're accustomed to. These fireworks are like gigantic sparklers strung above the ground. When they're lit, they create the ethereal feeling of falling stars or, as Roboseyo describes (and I quite like his visual), "bright flower petals floating to the ground."

[Check out this video footage from Roboseyo]

The rest of the night was a blur as round after round of soju and maggeolli found their way to our table, and the energy wound up before the evening wound down. Eventually, I retired to my shared room, tucked my too-thin blanket around my shivering body, and managed to settle into some sort of sleep (though between the winter chill and neighboring snorers, it wasn't particularly productive).

The next morning, after waking the the sounds of chirping birds outside our rice-paper window, new-found friend Adam (also an English teacher in Korea) and I did a little exploring around the village. We circled its perimeter, walking along narrow, dusty roads that tangled their way through the village, out to the edges of its rice fields and along the river, enjoying the peaceful pace of this rural respite from the busy world just outside its gates. We watched local farmers working in their fields, listened to the sound of wind blowing over vast carpets of rice crops, and even managed to find a litter of playful puppies. After putting our cameras to good use at some sort of wooden statue mini-park, we said farewell to our fair village and returned to the festival grounds to finish out the Maskdance weekend.

See more pictures of my visit to Hahoe Village here