Lotus Lantern Festival
The weekend before the day marking the birth of Siddartha Gautama, there is a huge festival held in Seoul called the Lotus Lantern Festival. It was by fair the largest festival I've ever experienced, as well as the most joyous. The happiness coming off these people was tangible, and exactly the thing I needed after Saturday's events.
I took a ton of pictures while I was there, but sadly the camera wasn't fully charged before hand, and I wanted to save some for the parade, so there was a lot of picture opportunities I missed out on. My mom's friend took some (which I will post when I get them), but here's what I got.
http://gvsu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2120499&l=d5867&id=22426944
Now I shall explain what wasn't captured in picture!
One of the first things we did when we got there was make lotus lanterns. There were booths everywhere and a lot of them had a place to go make lanterns, but we managed to stumble across a booth which was put up by a temple in the mountains, where an American family from Idaho has been volunteering for the last nine months. While we were making lanterns, my mom was talking to the little girl (probably about ten) and her mother - I missed most of the conversation, as making the lanterned turned out to be a very meditative experience, and I zoned out. After making them I told the woman about me trying (and failing) to find a job while out here, and she said I could volunteer at the temple with them and teach English! So hopefully I'll be getting a call from her in the next few days. I'd only be doing that on Saturdays, so I'd be able to tutor as well, if I can find students.
I also learned how to bow - which is much harder than you'd think. This also turned out to be very meditative for me - even though I was being talked to through it all and making a fool out of myself - as I was completely unaware of the group of Tibetan monks chanting just down the street from me. As soon as I get my room back, I'll start practicing my daily morning bowing. I'll definitely be starting small, but I'll hopefully get up to the full hundred bows a morning by the time I leave here. It'll really work my abs! (Think standing up from a crouch, without being able to use your hands or arms in any way, very tough. I practiced the bow serveral times, and I wasn't able to stand up without someone to keep me from falling over until the last couple.)
One of my favorite things about this festival is the international aspect of it. Monks come from all over the world to take part in it. They set up booths (as you can see in the pictures), and they performed traditional music and dance. I only got to see performers from Sri Lanka, Mongolia and Tibet, but that was enough to have me drooling all over myself! The group from Sri Lanka was three men (two drummers and a dancer) and they performed three or four different dances. I was lucky enough to be standing next to a group of men from Sri Lanka; one of them even spoke English and told me about a couple of the dances! The second dance I saw (the first dance that was discribed for me) was the Pahatharata dance. It's a dance where the dancer wears a mask of an animal or demon (I'm pretty sure the man in this dance wore a demon mask). It's used to ward off evil, disease causing spirits (much like an exocism) and the performer goes into a trance-like state while dancing. There was a part near the end where the trance was very obvious when he started rotating his upper body in circles and kept going faster. These masks are HUGE!
The next dance was a fire dance... your traditional, two torch, fire spinning/breathing dance, complete with him eating the flame and touching it on various parts of his body. It was incredible! I've never actually seen someone do that other than on tv.
Last was the Naiyandi dance. It was the most beautiful and elaborate of all the dances. It's actually supposed to take place at the beginning of a certain festival. He didn't really go into detail about this dance, as we were all pretty much just in awe of it. There were lots of acrobatic elements to it (flips and tons of spinning, etc).
Then a group of four Mongol monks came up to do some chanting. It was a part of Mongolian music that we didn't really look at in world music class. It started with the leader singing incredibly low, then the other three monks would join in and make some very interesting harmonies. Finally (the moment I'd been waiting for), the leader began throat singing! It was amazing!
The last group we watched before heading down the street to get in possition for the parade was the Tibetan monks I'd missed during my bowing adventure. It was two high horns (which had 4 holes), two low horns (no holes), cymbols, a drum and a bell. It was quite different from the chanting we listened to in class. Only one monk chanted, while being accompanied with the cymbols and drum, whereas on the recordings I've heard, they all chant and during the chanting, none of the instruments play. The sound of the low horns was very relaxing. I was sitting down at this point, and I just felt those bass notes flow through me.
Just a couple of other things...
Had my first real, authentic chai. It was delicious!
There were lots of people standing around with Free Hugs signs and t-shirts (yes, it's even a big thing in Korea!), so of course I participated in that :D
There was a protest going on, I know vaguely what it was about, but I want to look into it more before posting anything on here about it.
And right before the parade, a Christian man started walking down the street, holding a large cross that said 'Believe In Jesus' in both English and Korean, and had lots of verse written on his back. Now, what was really great about this was that everyone completely ignored him! I've gotten used to the pride parades, where people go and confront the protesters and things get nasty. It was such a wonderful relief that that didn't happen here. It really showed how peaceful and happy everyone really was at this.
Now that I've seen the parade, next year I'm going to walk in it!
I took a ton of pictures while I was there, but sadly the camera wasn't fully charged before hand, and I wanted to save some for the parade, so there was a lot of picture opportunities I missed out on. My mom's friend took some (which I will post when I get them), but here's what I got.
http://gvsu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2120499&l=d5867&id=22426944
Now I shall explain what wasn't captured in picture!
One of the first things we did when we got there was make lotus lanterns. There were booths everywhere and a lot of them had a place to go make lanterns, but we managed to stumble across a booth which was put up by a temple in the mountains, where an American family from Idaho has been volunteering for the last nine months. While we were making lanterns, my mom was talking to the little girl (probably about ten) and her mother - I missed most of the conversation, as making the lanterned turned out to be a very meditative experience, and I zoned out. After making them I told the woman about me trying (and failing) to find a job while out here, and she said I could volunteer at the temple with them and teach English! So hopefully I'll be getting a call from her in the next few days. I'd only be doing that on Saturdays, so I'd be able to tutor as well, if I can find students.
I also learned how to bow - which is much harder than you'd think. This also turned out to be very meditative for me - even though I was being talked to through it all and making a fool out of myself - as I was completely unaware of the group of Tibetan monks chanting just down the street from me. As soon as I get my room back, I'll start practicing my daily morning bowing. I'll definitely be starting small, but I'll hopefully get up to the full hundred bows a morning by the time I leave here. It'll really work my abs! (Think standing up from a crouch, without being able to use your hands or arms in any way, very tough. I practiced the bow serveral times, and I wasn't able to stand up without someone to keep me from falling over until the last couple.)
One of my favorite things about this festival is the international aspect of it. Monks come from all over the world to take part in it. They set up booths (as you can see in the pictures), and they performed traditional music and dance. I only got to see performers from Sri Lanka, Mongolia and Tibet, but that was enough to have me drooling all over myself! The group from Sri Lanka was three men (two drummers and a dancer) and they performed three or four different dances. I was lucky enough to be standing next to a group of men from Sri Lanka; one of them even spoke English and told me about a couple of the dances! The second dance I saw (the first dance that was discribed for me) was the Pahatharata dance. It's a dance where the dancer wears a mask of an animal or demon (I'm pretty sure the man in this dance wore a demon mask). It's used to ward off evil, disease causing spirits (much like an exocism) and the performer goes into a trance-like state while dancing. There was a part near the end where the trance was very obvious when he started rotating his upper body in circles and kept going faster. These masks are HUGE!
The next dance was a fire dance... your traditional, two torch, fire spinning/breathing dance, complete with him eating the flame and touching it on various parts of his body. It was incredible! I've never actually seen someone do that other than on tv.
Last was the Naiyandi dance. It was the most beautiful and elaborate of all the dances. It's actually supposed to take place at the beginning of a certain festival. He didn't really go into detail about this dance, as we were all pretty much just in awe of it. There were lots of acrobatic elements to it (flips and tons of spinning, etc).
Then a group of four Mongol monks came up to do some chanting. It was a part of Mongolian music that we didn't really look at in world music class. It started with the leader singing incredibly low, then the other three monks would join in and make some very interesting harmonies. Finally (the moment I'd been waiting for), the leader began throat singing! It was amazing!
The last group we watched before heading down the street to get in possition for the parade was the Tibetan monks I'd missed during my bowing adventure. It was two high horns (which had 4 holes), two low horns (no holes), cymbols, a drum and a bell. It was quite different from the chanting we listened to in class. Only one monk chanted, while being accompanied with the cymbols and drum, whereas on the recordings I've heard, they all chant and during the chanting, none of the instruments play. The sound of the low horns was very relaxing. I was sitting down at this point, and I just felt those bass notes flow through me.
Just a couple of other things...
Had my first real, authentic chai. It was delicious!
There were lots of people standing around with Free Hugs signs and t-shirts (yes, it's even a big thing in Korea!), so of course I participated in that :D
There was a protest going on, I know vaguely what it was about, but I want to look into it more before posting anything on here about it.
And right before the parade, a Christian man started walking down the street, holding a large cross that said 'Believe In Jesus' in both English and Korean, and had lots of verse written on his back. Now, what was really great about this was that everyone completely ignored him! I've gotten used to the pride parades, where people go and confront the protesters and things get nasty. It was such a wonderful relief that that didn't happen here. It really showed how peaceful and happy everyone really was at this.
Now that I've seen the parade, next year I'm going to walk in it!