korea night at washington state university
I attended a 'Korea Night' hosted by my university a couple of months ago, but at the time I was too busy to upload and post photographs from the occasion. The event consisted of a traditional fan dance (부채춤), a young girl playing a gayagum solo (가야금 연주), a Korean mask dance (랄춤), taekwondo (태권도), three folktale skits (the founding myth of Ancient Joseon, the story of a rich magistrate and his wife, and the origin of the sun and moon), a cappella singing, and samulnori drumming (사물놀이).
Clicking on any of the photos below should bring up a slightly larger-sized image.
« Left: fan dance (부채춤) | Right: fan dance (부채춤) »
« Left: fan dance (부채춤) | Right: gayagum (가야금) »
« Left: mask dance (랄춤) | Right: mask dance (랄춤) »
« Left: The story of Tiger "JK" and Ungnyeo | Right: Haesik & Dalsoon hiding in the tree »
« Left: kkwaenggwari (꽹과리) drum | Right: janggu (장고) drum & others »
Skit One
The story of Tiger and Bear starts when the two animals approach Hwanung, the song of the god Hwanin, and ask what they can do to become human. Hwanung has them live inside a cave for 100 days without sunlight and gives them each a handful of mugwort and twenty clove of garlic to keep Tiger and Bear from starving. In the story that I'm used to hearing Tiger grows angry or impatient and runs away early, but in the skit Bear eats Tiger's food to ensure she'll be the one to become human.
After twenty-one days Bear emerges from the cave as a beautiful woman named Ungnyeo 웅녀(熊女). Despite her appearance nobody was willing to wed her due to her past as a beast. She desperately wanted to have a child and sat beneath a holy tree and prayed for a child every day. Hwanung, moved by her prayers, took human form and through him she gave birth to a son. Her son was named Dangun and is the forefather of the Korean people.
Skit Two
This skit segued straight into the second section, which involves a beautiful woman, her husband, and their two children. The husband in the story is very greedy and hordes his wealth from everyone. One day a pair of beggars come to ask for spare change but are dealt with very harshly by the married couple. They come back later and steal the family's money, giving it out to everyone in the village. As a result, the greedy family quickly turns into the poorest family and the husband dies from shock and disappointment.
For this part of the skit the actors playing the role of beggars took a large chest full of "gold" and ran through the auditorium throwing pieces out into the audience. What looked like small gold pieces were actually chocolate candy wrapped in gold-colored foil.
Skit Three
The final skit was the story of the Sun and the Moon. It starts in a time when there are only stars in the sky, and involves a poor peasant woman and her two children. The mother sells rice cakes to make a living, and while going to the market one day encounters a tiger along the way. The mother is the same person who played Bear in the first skit, while Tiger is also the same person - so in a way it's as if Tiger were trying to get back at Bear for what happened earlier.
The tiger demands the peasant woman give him one rice cake to avoid being eaten, which she agrees to do. On the next hill the tiger appears once more, this time demanding two rice cakes. He appears once more asking for four rice cakes. The poor peasant woman no longer has any rice cakes to feed him and begs that he spare her life because of her two children back at home. This only makes the tiger more insatiable, so he eats the mother and takes her clothing to disguise himself to the two children.
When he approaches the house the tiger called out to Haesik (해식) the older brother and Dalsoon (달순) the younger sister, pretending to be their mother. Haesik isn't convinced and locks the door, but the tiger tricks Dalsoon by taking some of the powder from the rice cakes and putting it on his hand to make it look white.
The tiger chases the two children until they manage to find safety in a nearby tree. Dalsoon starts teasing the tiger, saying the only way he can catch them is by cutting down the tree with an axe. The tiger then finds an axe and proceeds to start chopping down the tree. Dalsoon then makes a prayer asking the heavens to send down a strong rope if they are to be saved and a rotten rope if they are to be damned. A strong rope comes down and the siblings climb up until they reach the heavens.
Seeing this, the tiger makes a similar request but ends up with a rotten rope. He falls down into a millet field and his blood stains the millet, which is why millet stalks are red. Meanwhile, in heaven, Haesik becomes the sun (햇님) while Dalsoon becomes the moon (달님). However, Dalsoon complains that she is afraid of the dark, so her brother trades places with her and becomes the moon on her behalf. And that marked the end of the skit.