Yesterday there was a festival
at Paldalmun, the south gate of the Suwon fortress, in honor of the fortress. My teaching partner Young invited me, and so I
met her there with Tween, Kristen, Cally, and Erica. Young's friend Seo ra
also met us. We walked around a bit and went to a huge food festival
area, where there were tents with all sorts of foods. Young got a really
yummy beef skewer, which she shared with everyone, and then I got a delectable
chicken skewer.
Here's the weird part.
After I got my skewer, we went off to stand somewhere and eat.
While I was eating, this Korean man with a huge professional camera came
running over to me and started taking photos of me eating the skewer. I was pretty uncomfortable because I hate
having my picture taken, but he wouldn't leave me alone. Then another man
saw what he was doing and came over and started taking pictures too. I
was bright red, my face was covered in sauce, all my friends were laughing at me
and talking about how much I was blushing, and these men had probably snapped
about ten photos each. I finally just posed for a photo and then, when
they didn't stop, literally ran away.
They chased me.
Sometimes it's a bit
awkward being white in Korea. I am extraordinarily white here. My
body is shaped very differently from theirs, my hair is much lighter than even
most foreigners' hair, and my eyes are big and bright blue. I seem to be
targeted more than Kristen, whose hair is dark brown and straight, or Cally,
whose eyes are not as bright blue as mine. Later, during the parade,
another man came up to the table where we were sitting, leaned across the whole
thing and waved directly in my face (I was sitting away from the sidewalk).
Even after I said hello he didn't leave, so I turned away toward the
street and about thirty seconds later he left. It's really weird to stand
out so much. Tween and I hang out a lot, and she hates it because she
isn't used to people staring at her since she's Vietnamese and blends in more.
After the food we found a
spot to sit for the parade. While we were sitting there, a parade
organizer came over and plopped down a large plastic bottle of Hite (one of the
main Korean beers) and some paper cups. For free. I know that
drinking is not necessarily frowned upon in the United States, but here it's
almost insulting if you don't drink. Everyone drinks, at all hours of the
day, in the open, behind closed doors, in front of the kids, liquor, beer,
wine, whatever. EVERYONE drinks.
The parade was really
cool, and I took tons of photos. Because last weekend when we were at
Chang Gyung Gung Kristen broke her camera, she took my digital camera and took
pictures with it while I used my SLR and took about three rolls of black and
white. Now I just need to find somewhere to develop them all. After
the parade we went up the street and ate some delicious mandoo, which are kind
of like potstickers, but with thinner dough. Essentially they are just
amazingly good dumplings.
Then today, Shannon
wanted to go to a soccer game, so she, Tonya, Tween and I met up and went to
Suwon's World Cup Stadium to watch them play against Ulsan (and no, I don't
know where Ulsan is. In Korea somewhere, I’d imagine). We found out
later it was a semifinal match. The Suwon team is supposedly the best
team in South Korea, so it was pretty entertaining. We bought a few six
packs and just chilled while we watched them WIN! It was really fun and
relaxing. Soccer is a pretty big deal here. They have sections for
the die hard fans, where it seems you can't sit unless you're wearing the
team's colors. They sing songs there, and do special dances that go with
the songs (which is cool to watch since a whole section of people are all
moving together) and get really into it. I enjoyed myself a lot.
It was a busy weekend,
but a fun one, too.
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