Live Music Now and Then

Traditional building in the village

Well now that I go through our pictures I realize how many things have happened over the past few weeks since our last update! We went to an International Jazz Festival, to a traditional village, to an International Body Painting Festival, to the 13th annual IAAF World Championships in Athletics, went to a Monk Festival on a nearby mountain and to a Samsung Lion’s baseball game! A lot has happened, not to mention teaching Monday-Friday with some amazing co-teachers and great students! 

Duryu Park

Concert Hall in Duryu Park- Daegu 

Say "Kimchi!"

Enjoying the concert with Mr. Kim

Kyle went to a Jazz festival where he met a Korean poet/journalist/tour guide. He was writing an article about the event and asked Kyle to write a little bit on it and his relationship with jazz, so Kyle agreed and then we met up with him together the next night at the festival. He took great cheesy pictures of Kyle, we listened to awesome music, and went back stage to meet one of the lead acts of the night. 

Kyle posing for the camera

The Jazz band: Prelude 

Ashton Moore- Jazz vocalist 

JHG- funk band

The stage and Daegu Tower

Meeting Ashton Moore

Mr. Kim, the journalist, then invited us to a village the following weekend where we would listen to Pansori, a genre of traditional Korean music. So plans for the next weekend were set- we met Mr. Kim and spent the day with him walking around the traditional Korean village, Inheung Village, the home to the Moon family. We had lunch (cold bean soup with noodles and kimchi soup) and visited with some residents of the village. This village was founded in the mid 19th century and still has 9 traditional homes, 2 shrines and one library. 

Rice fields for miles

More rice fields

The village 

Notice the man working in the field 

Fresh peppers

We also visited the Inheung Seowon Confucian Academy where we met an old man who showed us around happily. At first sight this man was very old with a net atop his head fashioned as a hat and I figured he did not know English, but probably knew Japanese and at least how to read and write in Chinese. We were shocked when he welcomed us, in English, with outstretched arms declaring that his son went to Harvard and many other details of his family’s accomplishments in perfect English! Without hesitation he invited for us to look at the wooden printing blocks of Myeonsimbogam which were used to create a book of wise sayings and famous phrases. Myeonsimbogam means “treasured mirror for enlightening the mind”, and this book has been and is used for moral education of children. The printing blocks were locked away in a storage room but the older man happily brought them out of their glass cases; the only remaining wooden blocks that were used to print the book. As he told us of the blocks he fell asleep sitting up, and that was our signal that it was time to go! We said goodbye and returned to the village nearby. 

At entrance of the academy

That evening we watched Pansori. The man sang and told a story while another man played a traditional Korean drum. There was about 30 people gathered in this traditional home that they turned into an open gazebo/stage. The traditional Korean homes have walls that are sectioned into what looks like large window panels, except instead of glass there is a special type of paper. These panels can be lifted like wings all around the structure creating a completely open home. In the middle of the performance there was a short break where everyone ate communally and then the performance ended with a joyful folk song (which was a large contrast to the sorrowful pansori tale). 

We have been lucky to meet some wonderful Korean people who have invited us to experience a more intimate and traditional part of Korea. More to come! 

-Shana