Sunday, September 29, 2013

Andong Maskdance Festival

This weekend I went to one of the major festivals in Korea--the Andong Maskdance Festival.  Andong is about an hour away from Jeomchon, and a city that has many cultural sites.  The Maskdance Festivals is an international festival, and attracts people from all around the world. I remembered seeing things about the Maskdance Festival when I originally found out I was placed in Gyeongbuk and started researching the area, so I was excited to get to check it out this weekend.

I went to the festival with a few other people from Jeomchon.  Once we were there, we met up with some other people and started to make our own masks.  The mask-making was pretty entertaining, as it was essentially a tent full of children...and then the table of foreigners. As we were sitting there making our masks, one man came over with his daughter because he wanted to take a picture of her with us.  I thought he was just going to put her in front of us, but he ended up sitting her right on my lap.  No complaints here...she was completely adorable.  It was a pretty great start to the day.

It's no secret that I love children. I have been babysitting since middle school, and I kept many babysitting jobs throughout college.  I even kept a few babysitting jobs when I was teaching last year because as I tell people, I need to get my nuturing out of my system.  I have no desire to have children of my own for years, but I love going to festivals and other outings around Korea because there are adorable children EVERYWHERE.  And of course, I think they are adorable because I don't have to deal with their temper-tantrums, but still, these kids are pretty stinking adorable.


We spent a while making our first masks.  Mine did not come out as well as I would have liked, but now I know, and if I am in Korea again for the festival next year, I'll definitely have a better game plan.  Regardless, it was great to get a little crafty--there just aren't enough opportunities to be crafty when you teach high school!

After we made our masks, we got some lunch and spent some time walking around the tents that had food, souvenirs, and games. The merchants were selling just about EVERYTHING from socks and pantyhose to heating pads, to mops.  You name it, they were selling it.  We also enjoyed the games that they had available.  Many of the prizes for the games were not just over-sized stuffed animals, but alcohol.  Oh, Korea, you know how to get our money. I didn't play any of the games, but one of my friends wanted a bottle of wine and tried a few times.  Of course, he didn't end up with a bottle of wine, but a back scratcher and a yo-yo. Oh well. Overall, the Omija Festival we went to last week was minuscule in comparison to the amount of things that were at this festival--we spent a considerable amount of time just looking around at everything.

We eventually stopped by a maskdance performance.  They were short little stories that were performed wearing traditional masks and clothing alongside traditional Korean drumming.  Of course, I had no idea what they were saying, but we got the general gist of the performances.  It was definitely interesting to say the least, and I'm glad we stopped for at least a little bit to see some of the performance.

Korea has developed astonishingly quickly over the past 60 years.  At one point we were walking around the festival and saw a bunch of photographs from the Korean War displayed along a walkway.  The pictures were amazing and showed not only the suffering of people during the War, but also showed a country with dirt roads and very little development.  Today, Korea has some of the most modern cities in the world and it can be easy to forget that this is a country that in fact has a very old and unique culture.  It would be very easy to live in Korea and not learn about the history or traditional culture.  However, I hope that throughout my time here I can learn more about this traditional culture, because I feel that failure to do so would prevent me from experiencing an important part of the heart of this country.

We spent the rest of the day walking around a bit more, then we stopped to make our second masks--this time they were made out of Hanji--the traditional Korean paper.  I'm glad we stopped for our second masks, because I was much happier with how my second one turned out.

One of the more entertaining parts of the day was when we encountered these little carts pulled by little robots.  The robots pull the carts around and it is just the most hysterical thing to watch.  Oh Korea, always thinking of the most clever things.


After taking our turn with the carts, we met up with some other friends and went to a different part of Andong for dinner.  One of my friends used to live in Andong, so she led us to a little hole in the wall type of place.  We were in the main market, and we had to walk through some hallways into a back room to get to our dining place.  The room was actually really cool because there was writing all over the walls...it was definitely a different feel from the other Korean restaurants I've been to.

Dinner was absolutely delicious.  We had jjimdalk, which is Andong's specialty food.  It was chicken cooked with a bunch of different vegetables and noodles in a spicy sauce.  Definitely delicious, and when I'm in Andong again I will definitely have to go back! It also doesn't hurt that dinner only cost $8.  Eating at restaurants in Korea is definitely WAY more affordable than it is in the US.

After dinner we had some time before our bus, so we did some walking around in the different stores.  We ended the night by stopping in a bakery and getting some espresso and dessert.  Definitely a perfect ending to a great day.

I had a great time at the festival, and I'm really glad I got to go.  I spent more money than I had wanted to, but it was well worth it for a day of great good, fun, and culture.

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