Andong International Mask Dance Festival.
Pretty cool huh?
Ever since I moved here, all that was talked about was the jjimdak chicken, Hahoe Village, and this mask festival. Our slogan is, "The Capitol of the Korean Spirit," for very good reason.
This meant a huge influx of people in Andong. I was away for most of it since the first weekend was Chuseok, but when I came back I was taken aback by the amount of people and cars that suddenly appeared in this city. More on the festival in a second..
I made my first trip to Hahoe Village. I regret not doing it sooner since it is the most famous place in Andong. You need to take a 40-minute bus ride to the outskirts of Andong-- which means country, farm, mountains, and village. That's about it. But boy is it stunning. Hahoe Village or 하회마을. For those of you at home--- when Hangul is translated into English characters, 'oe' is pronounced "way''. So, in Korean, you literally says "Haway Maeul." I'm not even going to begin to explain the pronunciation of Maeul through writing. Way too difficult. If you really want to know, go study up on your Hangul. No? Well then, moving on..
A few facts on 하회마을: It is a 600 year old well-preserved village, birth place to two brothers who held high positions during the Joseon Dynasty and Japanese Invasion. The Nakdong River flows around the village in an S shape; Ha means river and oe means turning around, hence how the name Hahoe came to be. There is a beautiful 600-year old Zelkova tree there. (Fun fact: My favorite coffee shop in downtown Andong is called Zelkova, and has a lovely poem about the tree on the bathroom wall.) It is said that the goddess Samsin resides inside. There, you can write down a personal wish on a piece of paper and tie it along the rope that circles around the entire base of the tree. The Zelkova is located in the center of the village with the straw and tile-roofed houses facing the river. We also got to experience a traditional Korean mask dance. The costumes and masks were quite exuberant. Here is a video below.
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| Traditional Korean mask dance |
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| Zelkova Tree |
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| My wish |
As for the festival... Clearly I couldn't let Kate leave without experiencing a Korean festival, especially when it's being held within a 15-minute walk from my apartment door. So we went on Thursday and made masks, did some ridiculous vendor shopping, street food eating etc. Unfortunately we got there late since I had work, so we didn't have time for much more. On Saturday, I had a bunch of friends from down south who came up for it which was really nice because it was the first time I had visitors from within the country. We saw a show that consisted of dances from Mexico, Costa Rica, and Malaysia. They were all amazing, but the Mexican dancers were off the charts. They combined traditional Mexican dances with modern dance, which I love. (Made me miss dancing a lot, and realized how old I'm getting when I looked back on the countless years I used to dance.) Anyways.. after the show, we chilled with our best friend- makkoli. I made new best friends with an ahjussi. He came right up to me and with his broken English, tried asking me to take a picture with his phone. At first, we thought he wanted a picture of us, then of him, then of me and him, then who knows what. But this whole ordeal was spent with him shoving the phone in my face (it's all in hangul, so I couldn't for the life of me figure it out) and him playfully hitting my arm several times to get my attention and reiterate the fact that he needed to get his camera phone to work. This went on for a good amount of time until my friend Simon finally took out his own phone to take the picture. Oh yes, that is him below... good looking fella. I mean it takes a lot of balls to go up to a group of 7 foreigners and try to communicate when you know a total of about 10 English words. So go him! I love these random, awkward, moments in Korea. They make my days so much more interesting and worthwhile, and of course make for a great story. After this fun encounter, we made our way over to the mask decorating tent, where I made my second mask. Just imagine 7 foreigners in their mid 20's amongst a tent full of Korean children. (Who by the way, have way better mask decorating skills than we do.)
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| BFF |
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| Had to hold myself back from these bags and the jewelry at this vendor |
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| One way to not get wet.. |
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| The beginning of the vendors.. |
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| Me and Kate |
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| Simon, Jaceon and Glen |
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| Just pop a squat |
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| Glen, Marc, and Simon |
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| Introduced them to jjimdak |
This past weekend was filled with everything Andong. I said it countless times.. Of course I've come to love where I live, but I was particularly proud this weekend to be a "resident" of it. Korean people love Andong because of the culture that it has preserved. It is a fact that it holds the largest number of cultural properties in Korea. This is why the Andong people love their city, and walking around the festival- it was clear that everyone else in Korea holds a great amount of respect for it as well.
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