South Korea: Glimpse Of Korean Culture

For Saturday, October 15, 2011

Seoul

For several days prior, I had been approached by various people my age on the street and told about a cultural event for foreigners to learn about Korean culture. Mia (the hostel owner) had told all her guests about it as well, so I had decided to go. This day was the day, so I did some laundry and blogged until it was time to leave for the cultural event. I was supposed to meet Charles (from Singapore) there at 3 PM, but the subway trip was much longer than I had anticipated, so I was a half hour late, and couldn’t find Charles at our meeting place, so I continued on to the event. It had begun raining really hard earlier that day, so I was using my umbrella. Stupidly, I had left my jacket at home, having been fine with just a long-sleeved shirt up to that point. I arrived and searched for Charles, but couldn’t find him, so I resigned myself to going it alone and sat down to watch. Some girls from Argentina sat next to me, and we chatted a little bit. At the time I arrived, the performers were doing rehearsals and sound checks, which I didn’t realize, so I was at first shocked when the announcer would cut them off in the middle of their performances. Later, it became clear that the real performances had yet to come. Sitting there in one spot without moving around, I became very cold, and did everything one does to try to stay warm when sitting down. I decided to tough it out and learn my lesson, even though it would mean sitting in freezing air for two hours. It became easier when the performances began and I was distracted. There were some great performances by people from other countries, but the true stars of the show were the Korean performers. There was a group of women who banged drums and hopped up and down in unison that was mesmerizing. Other groups moved about in interesting and beautiful ways. One group of men wore hats with ropes attached that they swung around in circles by motions of their heads. Afterward, Charles found me, and we and the Argentinian girls went for dinner at the nearby Lotte mall. The girls had saved up for a year to live in South Korea for three months, which I admired. They spoke very good English, and were fans of K-pop (Korean pop music). Charles and I tried to help one of the girls, Sammy (not sure of the spelling, maybe Sami), find a friend in the Hongdae area, near our hostel, but we couldn’t find the place, so she joined Charles and I for norebang (karaoke). We headed back to my hostel so I could get my jacket and dump my backpack, and Zara (who works at the hostel) decided to join us. All four of us went to norebang and sang for an hour (this one only served non-alcoholic drinks), then went dancing and drinking at Papa Gorilla, a nearby dance club. We left the club at 3 AM and got Charles a taxi back to his hotel, then returned to the hostel at about 3:30 AM. I would be leaving Seoul for Jeju island the next morning.