Dano-Je

Last week was quite a busy week. Sunday started Danoje, the 3rd largest and longest running festival in Korea, but I think this year's attendance must have been a little low because of PresidentRoh's suicide.
So what exactly is DanoJe? It is a celebration of spirits and rituals, supposedly it has been celebrated for over 1,000 years. Dano takes place over the course of 8 days, there were lots of traditional things to see such as dancing, singing, music, and mask dramas. There were also many modern dance and singing shows as well as performances by artists from all over the world. They also had traditional sports events like Korean wrestling, tug-of-war, and swinging competitions. You could make traditional crafts such as masks, food, fans, and spoons in special tents where people who spoke surprisingly good English would help you. I went toDano 5 out of 8 days, despite this I still didn't get to do or see most of the stuff I mentioned.


I went to Dano on Monday night, right after class on my scooter. I met some people down there for dinner.









We had mouthwatering Korean beef cooked on our table with onions and garlic. The people working there came over, took a picture of us devouring their beef like vultures and then brought us a freepepsi.









I had to leave right after dinner to go back to school for nightly tutoring, so I didn't get to see much except the tasty beef tent.


On Wednesday at school we had presentations, I'm hoping this isn't going to become a monthly thing because it is SO stressful. The director freaks out too much over these mothers who can barely speak English themselves. Most of them have no idea what their kids are saying anyway.
I did get to see all my afternoon classes together in my room and had a swooning teacher moment. I'm so proud of my kids, they did an awesome job on their presentations.
These are all my afternoon kids (intermediate on left, returnee in middle, and PK6 on right) except 1 who couldn't come and 3 late PK6ers.



On Thursday we had a Dano holiday, I was also let off my nightly tutoring on Wednesday. So Wednesday night I went back to Dano with my buddy Chris and saw some more stuff.
The festival takes place on both sides of the river, on one side there are flea market style vendors where you can buy anything and everything you can think of and non-rigged carnival games. On the other side was mostly places to eat, stages, activities, rides, a science center, and a circus.









The vendor tents were really intense, I really mean that you could buy ANYTHING!
Cookies by the kg, dried minnows of all shapes and sizes,









loose tea and berries used for making moonshine, shoes,









pots and pans, magical solutions for cleaning pots and pans, knives, knife sharpers, magical solutions for cleaning knives and knife sharpers, hoses, tools, umbrellas, cell phone skins, clothes new and used, purses, sunglasses, used watches, ajuma visors and accessories, on and on.

One of my favorite things was seeing this guy making one of my favorite snacks, fried fish paste on a stick. Here in Korea you can see just about anything edible fried orBBQed and shoved on a stick. Fish paste, chicken livers, chicken, beef, mystery meats, fish paste corndogs, crab corndogs, corndogs, and a special type of corndog that Stephanie likes to (unknowingly) call "sloppy seconds," this is a corn dog that is fried with french fries on top.


At one of the stages they had a traditional instrument orchestra playing.



My hagwon give us the day off on Thursday so we could go enjoy Dano. Chris, Stephanie, and I went together. This is the first time that all 3 of us have done something together in at least a month. Luckily we didn't see anyone we knew, I wouldn't want any rumors flying around after all.


You could take paddle boats out on the river.


I'm making a traditional snack with a banana leaf, a date, and rice. Your supposed to boil it in water for 2hours, but I had my doubts that my tiny little travel burner could last that long so I tossed it after letting it sit in my fridge for a couple of days.










After crossing over one of the bridges we came into a Korean "tailgating" area. We saw a group of older Koreans cheering and making a lot of noise so we went over to check it out. We watched a little bit, then all the Koreans turned around and looked at us all at once. Uh OH! We'd been spotted! They pulled us into the tent and filled this giant trophy cup they had been drinking out of with a traditional Korean liquor called Makgeolli. Oh Makgeolli, how can I explain? It is milky and sweet, it looks and tastes(I'd imagine) like fermented, caffeinated cow jiz. They filled up the cup and started shouting "ONE SHOT ONE SHOT!" Chris did his one shot, I did my one shot, Stephanie couldn't finish her one shot so they poured it on top of her head. Oh Koreans. Then they fed us a ton of food, all free. All because we were foreigners? Because they were drunk? Who knows. I later got out that one of the guys had won the tug-o-war and this was their celebration we had accidentally been dragged into and it was his victory cup that we had been forced to one shot out of.

Eating at the one shot tent. I think my expression says "I'm eatting" but Steph thinks its really a comment about the gangta sitting next to me.

There was a TON of BBQing whole pig going on for a country terrified so much of swine flu that foreign teachers are being quarantined and having to get tested even if they'd been in the country for 3+ months. Not sure if its been in the news back home, but Korea is having a small problem with swine flu. A couple of weeks ago a foreigner teacher with swine flu came to Seoul for an orientation, they ended up giving the flu to 30 something other people. Many of new teachers have been quarantined somewhere in Seoul for the past few weeks now, it sounds horrible. A friend's school here was forced to close for a whole week because of a news story that said "blagh blagh" hagwon employees all have swine flu, even though the people at the branch here have been in the country for a really long time and most definitely do not have swine flu.. they still had to close for public image. An official called my school asking our director to have us tested, but she said it was absolutely ridiculous because we had been here so long. Koreans are so weary of foreigners, if one of us has swine flu than every foreigner must have swine flu, if one foreigner gets caught with illegal drugs than every foreigner is a child molesting crack addict, if one foreigner dares to break contract by private tutoring than every foreigner is cheating and endangering the education system.
Anyway, the pig was delicious.

My favorite part was the traditional dancing and drumming. I've heard a few foreign teachers say the drumming sounds like pots and pans, but I thought it was interesting and powerful.










Kind of like marching band.












On Friday, just Stephanie and I went. We watched some modern dancing and some more traditional percussion.


We also caught the circus, it was pretty decent.


I went back by myself on Saturday. It was a fire day, they burnt a wooden ship and danced around with torches while beating the lovely pots and pans.


It started pouring down rain with lightening and thunder. The crowd freaked out. The tents tents started filling up with water and bursting, soaking everyone underneath. It was quite the sight.


I made my 2 months here in Korea on Monday, no longer in the "fresh of the boat" category. I can't believe that its only been that long, I feel like I've been here forever. Not that that's a bad thing, only that I mean I feel pretty well adjusted and comfortable. Chopsticks are like second nature to me now, I felt stupid and clumsy using a fork and knife on those few occasions when I've had to. Learning Korean is going, I may do a language exchange with a lady at school once she is finished her exams.

Tomorrow at the school we are doing something called "restaurant play." The kindergartens are going to dress up in their formal outfits then pretend to have nice dinner together. They got paired off into girl-boy dates, something that they are actually ok and most didn't complain much except for one of Steph's who started crying and wouldn't stop till his date got changed. I spent the week helping them make invitations and teaching them how to ballroom dance, it doesn't really matter that I have NO idea how to ballroom dance.. just being a foreigner makes me an expert I guess. They were actually really into the ballroom dancing part, I couldn't believe my eyes. What 6-7 year olds would want to dance with a randomly assigned partner of the opposite sex? Seeing them dance and spin around was amazing, I can't wait to see it in their fancy outfits.
The director has me signed up to be the waitress, great! I was just starting to miss that, haha. It should be really cute and I'm excited to see them in their pretty lacy dresses and bow ties.

This weekend I'm going to a big beach party in Sokcho, about an hour scooter ride north from Gangneung. It should be HUGE. I'm hoping it doesn't rain. I hate how beautiful it is during the week and that it starts pouring as soon as Friday night comes along.