Drinking makgeolli, meeting popstars... a day in the life....

The entrance to the festival

On Saturday we were invited to the Paju Flower Festival in nearby Paju Book City, a village of super-modern eco buildings, similar to Heyri Art Village, but with bookstores and publishers. Preparations have been going on for the Festival for the past 6 weeks, and when our bus drew up to the Village, the green hills that we usually see from the windows of the bus to Seoul drew gasps of admiration - they were blanketed with splashes of yellow, orange, red, blue, white... The gardeners had been hard at work.

There were 7 of us representing English Village, plus a few Korean administrators, and we all donned flags from various countries - I was given the Union Jack, which I at least have a connection to - Cait got Australia! Then we gathered behind the EV flag, borne aloft by one of our cartoon mascots (a poor Korean part-timer squeezed into a large-headed and very hot furry costume), and followed the brass band in front of us down the street. We were cheered on by people sitting under canvas tents along the sidewalk - mostly dignitaries in suits - as we waved our hands regally, and gave the peace sign to cameras and film crews. The route was short - we walked for around 10 minutes - then we were able to stand on the sidewalk and cheer on the other groups taking part. One attraction was the float carrying three gorgeous girls playing strings.

Schoolgirl floats

They were more than matched in attire, if not in talent, by the girls wandering around in teeny ladybird outfits and knee-high stiletto boots. The sexualisation of innocent storytime creatures... I read a great piece recently on Korean women and their strong need to be beautiful - "Korean Psychiatrists Discover Shocking New Mental Disorder" - which would have been funnier had it not been so true to life, I thought it was a real report for the first few paragraphs... One of the pop songs at the moment has a girl telling her boyfriend "I don't want you to tell me you like me because I'm nice... let's be honest... you like my legs... you like my butt..." and is, unfortunately, not ironic, as a Western equivalent might be.

After the parade was over, we were taken out for lunch. We chose a bibimbap stall where we sat down with our CEO. First up was the makgeolli - a milky rice wine. Tasted a little like a sour apple juice - mmm! Makgeolli is traditionally served with pajeon - traditional pancakes, stuffed with various fillings - a little like the Korean version of a pizza. Ours came with seafood - although I wasn't a huge fan of the tiny suckered legs poking out from some slices, I knew I loved pajeon from previous encounters, so just became very selective when choosing my slices!

However, lunch is never just lunch for us in Korea. Soon, our CEO, who had gone off to a nearby table in the VIP section, came back with a small unassuming gentleman: the mayor of Paju, wanting to buy us a few bowls of makgeolli. We were, of course, obliging. He was very sweet and welcoming and told us we were good for his province. Then, from the table next to us, a pretty young girl got up and came over to talk to Rick (our Korean administrator). He translated for us: she was a popstar, and she wanted us to pose for a picture with her. Now, to my mind, this was slightly topsy turvy to the way we would have done it in the west, but never mind. To the gasps of a group of boys who'd noticed her in the dark tent, we posed for a few photos with Bae Seul-gi - she of the "don't say you like me for my personality" video.

Strange times! We laugh in the teachers' room that it's going to be tough readjusting when we leave Korea - we're going to cry at strangers "But why don't you love me? Don't I have a small face? Adore me! Adore me!"

The Ballerina And The Breakdancer

Last week we got an e-mail.

"GEV is planning on inviting EV teachers to the show " Ballerina who loves B-boy". As you heard, it is a world wide famous show. "

Well... world-famous might be pushing it a little, but it did get good reviews at the Edinburgh Fringe, so we signed up for the trip. A play about a ballerina who falls in love with a breakdancer, called, amazingly, Ballerina Who Loves B-Boy, sounded interesting if only for the dancing we might expect.

We made our way by public bus - the bus driver looking mildly terrified by the 70 waegookin making for his bus; the three other passengers merely bemused by the overflowing state of their usually empty ride home. My Science coteachers and I paused for dinner at a Japanese noodle restaurant near the theatre where the table was filled with beautiful, deep ceramic bowls brimming with thick white noodles and veggies.








We reached the theatre by 8. An entire section of the small space had been reserved for the foreigners, stopping the MC in his tracks as he realised a third of his audience wasn't laughing on time, but were turning to their Korean coteachers for translations first (although our friends were too busy messing about with our photos to be translating for us...) He got into the spirit though, testing out his English on us and laughing with glee when our American head teacher spoke back in Korean. Right from the start it was clear that the audeince were working members of the cast. Kids behind us chattered away, while adults clapped, cheered, and responded to winks and goads by the dancers.

The energy of the hip-hop dancers with their wild music, heavy beats and elastic moves contrasted with the slightly lacklustre ballet scenes so that by the time the heroine cast off her tutu to join the skimpily dressed breakdancing groupies it was an unsurprising choice - and not as irritating as the classic Grease makeover... The dancers leapt and spun and rolled in the air as if on strings. It was absolutely amazing - and even better for each move, each death-defying leap, being met by gasps, cheers and applause from the audience. A review of the show at the Edinburgh Fringe lamented the dour Scots' refusal to rise to the dancers' exhortations to clap along - no such problems here!

We were quickly drawn in by the dancers, who are members of an award-winning breakdance group. The lead dancer, the B-Boy of the title, was particularly eye-catching, his arms bristling with energy, strength gleaming in every muscle, his shirt falling open... uh... I mean... Where was I? Oh yeah, leaning forward to better take in the view... ahem, I mean, the dancing! The dancing!

There was no talking at all, which suited all of us perfectly. The meaning of the play was conveyed by movement, dance and sometimes exaggerated gesture, and it took me 15 minutes to realise that it was silent - I had already understood so much, my brain assumed the actors were talking.

Afterwards, the cast all stood on the edges as the audience piled onto the stage brandishing cameras and programmes. Cait and I ummed and aahed until we finally joined the other EV teachers in a group photo with the cast. Very odd - somehow can't imagine it happening on Broadway - which is where this production was last put on.

When the autographing and photo opping had ended, and we'd been introduced to the producer and theatre owner, as befits the celebs we are, Cait, Leigh, Kori and I wandered out to find the nearest subway. Earlier that day, the streets of Seoul had been filled with a sea of weeping Koreans, gathered for the funeral of the ex-president Roh Moo-Hyun, who, in keeping with Korea's massive suicide rate, jumped off a cliff on Sunday. I'd seen the crowds on TV that afternoon, and there were several people worried that we wouldn't actually get into Seoul. Between the bus stop and the theatre, though, all we'd seen were hundreds of riot police, settling down in rows to eat their dinner off their riot shields. Now, as we walked down the street we saw crowds of people holding candles, signing posters tacked to the temple walls, or eating on picnic blankets with their families. When we emerged into the main square there was still a band playing, and the streets were packed wall-to-wall with mourners from babies to grandfathers, and more than the usual number of drunks curled up in doorways.






















The outpouring of grief has been somewhere near the level of Princess Diana's death in 1997. The most interesting thing about his death is the reaction of ordinary Koreans. Roh was accused of corruption, and there is a major ongoing investigation at the moment. Koreans are angry at the current government for pursuing the investigation and hounding Roh to his death. Nobody seems to care whether the charges are fair or not; they think that they should not have been made against a senior official, regardless of truth. It's wrapped up with the Korean sense of honour. An argument will always be avoided in Korean society, because it is unthinkable that it should reach a point where one will be forced to accede to the other, and thus lose face. Roh's honour was tarnished and he could do nothing but commit suicide...

Life in a theme park

Oh, the sweet joy of waking up in English Village! Not for us the intrusive sounds of angry traffic! Nor must we endure the twittering of birds in the hills surrounding our houses. For the powers that be, and oh how I thank them every day, have seen fit to install a speaker outside Jupiter Building, on a streetlight so that it's just at the level of my room. Through this speaker come such treasures!

This morning for instance, it was "If you're happy and you know it". Yesterday we had "I like doughnuts! I love doughnuts! They make me happy!" (we're apparently on a mission to turn kids from the healthy Asians they are into tubby Westerners...)

Anything, though, anything at all, is better than the theme song.

"Welcome to English Village.... I like speaking English..... it's greeeeaaaaat, it's fun, it's English Village!"

I told you in one of my first posts about losing half my class when they saw a celebrity wandering the streets of EV. Film crews, musicians and soap-stars are common here, the scenery as exotic to Koreans as the hanok villages are to us westerners. A few weeks ago, a music video was shot in the Village. I took the picture below from the teachers' room of the male singer with his backing dancers. Later, we emerged from our Friday closing ceremony with the kids to find the main route to the cafeteria blocked by the film crew, and our cries of "No running!" went completely ignored as 400 teenagers ran screaming for the barriers. My coteachers and I found ourselves physically holding students back as the two main singers tried to hide behind props! It was like being in an old Beatles video! Eventually, the female singer, her head hidden beneath a blanket, was rushed to a van with darkened windows and then we were able to start ushering the students to the cafeteria for their lunch. A surreal experience. I found out from one of the girls (almost fainting with excitement) that the female singer was one half of Davichi, a popular girlband.

The video is sweet, funny, and very typically Korean. You can watch it here: "If You Pretend" It's full of subtext and references and insider jokes for Korean teenagers. Right at the end, as the girl sinks onto his shoulder, he wonders "Who should I score next? Hyori?" - Hyori is a beautiful very famous actress-singer - the highest paid in Korea :)