Day 208
Jikji spring. Yellow bushes line the walks, pink spots on rocks, cherry blossoms have fallen. They are replaced by picnickers on the lovely spring day.
Post morning, A visit to the campus of Gimcheon College provides the sight of a miserable monkey family in a 20 foot jungle-gym cage. Papa's a little aggro, but who can blame him? Next up on the sad sights tour is the Deer Pen. 4 deer lay in the shade of sheds within their 30 foot cage. The trees are sheathed in metal...perhaps to prevent antler sharpening by the raging buck? Who knows. Handstand practice happens near the pond while Myeong Hee ponders the present.
On an afternoon walk through town, I meet 5 new foreigners and am accompanied by another. Gimcheon has recently become home to... 12 new people? Perhaps more. This occurance has changed my outlook for the spring. A positive outlook requires less determination than it has in the past month.
During dinner, I am surprised by arms around my waist and turn to discover an ajuma covering my bared back with an apron. Perhaps a longer shirt would've prevented this, but it was certainly entertaining.
Home to special tea and scrabble. Recalling the sweetness in tiny bites of lilac as a child, I collect some from the bush outside. The flowers change from...well, lilac, to pale gray. The taste is faintly bitter. I add rosemary to create a rather medicinal tasting nightcap.
Day 207
Walking from home to the station. Riding from the station to the station. Walking from the station to class. This all happens.
Walking from class to the subway. Riding from the stop to the terminal. Riding from the terminal to the temple. This also happens.
Walking from the bus stop to temple site. Hearing massive chanting. Seeing chains of lotus lanterns. Walking 108 steps up. Seeing masses of people walking a maze while carrying replicas of the woodblocks housed at Haeinsa on their heads. This happens.
Wandering. Being invited into line. Having my arm taken by a woman whose mastery of English rivals my mastery of Korean. Walking past the Tripitaka Koreana. Peeking through slatted windows large enough to call walls. Accepting a plastic replica of a woodblock from youthful monks. Supressing a laugh as monks supress looks of surprise. This all happens.
Walking the maze single file. Completing and exiting the maze. Being guided to the temple cafeteria. Walking arm in arm to the parking lot. Getting in the couple's car, which happens to be a taxi. Riding in the taxi from temple to town. Subway to station. Station to station. This finally happens.
Finally back in Gimcheon 14 hours later, I meet up with a woman who has recently arrived. The night is filled with cathartic chatting first at one Hof with brick pattern wallpaper, then at another with walls that could've passed for a High School locker door.
Showing posts with label busan fireworks festival. Show all posts
Showing posts with label busan fireworks festival. Show all posts
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Fire Flowers
Day 31
GET OUT OF THE HOUSE!!! Get out of the house before 10 am, I say to myself. That is the goal. Nearly, 10:10 and I lock the door behind me. A morning walk into downtown past old women squatting on the street shining persimmons and thrusting bags of peeled garlic into the air for me to see. Someone is behind her metal cart filling small dips in a cast iron pan with oil, dough, and bean paste. The sun is shining and I climb the stairs to step onto train yard bridge. I complete my errands and chat with Im You Hee, who wears dark blue contacts. I am back before noon and quickly out again. Werrrrrkkkk.
Day 32
Train station 10:35. I'm late. 10:40. 10:50. Mark highsteps past me asking "Did you buy your ticket yet?" on the way. I barely utter "no" and he's 10 feet away. Nicole walks in explaining that the train we're catching leaves at 10:54.
Our seats are separate and I end up next to "Freddie", a businessman from Ghana. He gives me chocolate bars and offers to buy me an international phone card so I can call my grandmother. "Give me your phone number, I will call you with a phone card number."
Uh...thanks, Freddie, but I don't know..."You will come to Seoul soon?" No.
Haeyundae Beach and Pacific Shells. Coral? Too Beautiful.
I draw them in the sand, making patterns, getting wider wider.
Away from shore, Korean Krishnas (?) drum and gong their way along the walk. No one pays them much mind.
Subway into Busan. Destination: Gwangalli Beach. People People it is 5 p.m. the beach is half full. The streets are half full.
4th Busan Fireworks Festival. Fire Flowers is the Korean term.
7 p.m. peoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeo
peoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeop
lepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepe
oplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeople
peoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeop
This must be what it is like to be a blood cell. Veins of people are striving to reach their destination in time. Must. Sit. Before. First. Fire. A crowd of 1.5 million people is on the beach. Or trying to be. I am one of them.
8 p.m.
Notes from the show:
Busan Bridge grows a glowing vine first red, then slowly colors cascade to the water.
Battleships or fakes. Shoot, they're shooting at one another with gold and red and smoke and the gold moon hangs low over a cityscape and WHAT are these flying flames?? Bird Kites!!! Glow gold red and stream green flying flaming over crowds and water. Phoenix. Phoenixes? Pheoni? The gold moon climbs higher slightly and stays large. A globe. Lazers? Do you see those lazers in the smoke? On the building! Oh! Light show!
What is this music? I can ignore it. I will listen to the story these "fire flowers" tell with my eyes.
Later...wander, wander, subway, wander, sleep.
Day 33
A morning train takes me home with Standing Room Only.
Taxi! Gimcheon Science Festival, please. I point to a street-lamp with a flag indicating the dates and times of the Festival. A student has a booth, I told her I would go. Too bad I don't know where it is or how to get there.
The driver nods and drives in the opposite direction. I figure he knows where he's going...until he stops at an intersection near my house and asks Right or Left? Stunned, I shake my head neither. He lets me out and gives me a W300 discount. Thanks, Driver.
What do thirteen year olds like? I try to figure it out and end up watching Hannah Montana, Jackass, Funny Home Videos, and Mr. Ed...some clips of Faith the Two-Legged Dog, and finally decide to look into some Mad Libs. I think that's pretty close to what they like. I think.
Day 34
Address postcards. Gluestick stamps to postcards. Post postcards.
Day 35
On the way to work, I remember that today, parents are coming to watch my class. No sweat. They're a good class, I'm a good teacher. It's fine. Until Mrs. Lee appears and is a flurry of nervous energy and Yuna, my co-teacher, is trying to explain to me the lesson plan, but can't fully and so enlists the aid of Cindy.
"What is going on?" the 3 o'clock "bell" goes off. It actually sounds more like a cell phone alarm. I ask for the folder I'm to teach from this hour.
"Mrs. Lee didn't tell you?"
"Tell me what?"
"You're supposed to..ahh...ummm...you watch students. They have.."
"Practice? I'm supposed to listen to them practice for this weekend?"
"Yes!"
"Where??" I am guided by the elbow by Sally to a room downstairs. She leaves and students file in. What is going on? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I ask students in the room to start their presentations. Mid-presentation, other teachers file in and sit down, other students come in and sit down...15 minutes into it all, Mrs. Lee comes in.
"Candida! sit sit sit come come come come, sit." What??
She rapid fires words at the room, sets up a fake podium bustles through the front of the room and instructs students to start over. She motions to me and asks me to go upstairs to practice for the 4 o'clock class.
"Very important day, today." Okay, I'll go practice.
How did it go? Oh, fine. It went fine. Fine...it's fine it's fine, slightly awkward, I mean just fine. great! fine. The kids are great. Timing is a little off and there's extra time in which Yuna and Mrs. Lee are mouthing "Speaking Time again Conversation Time again Sing A Song again" Okay.
After class, I think about the fireworks again. I wish for a camera. I wish for...I want to...the flaming kites. I can't believe they were real. Luckily, total strangers Sheri & Trav were there, too. And they made a video.
GET OUT OF THE HOUSE!!! Get out of the house before 10 am, I say to myself. That is the goal. Nearly, 10:10 and I lock the door behind me. A morning walk into downtown past old women squatting on the street shining persimmons and thrusting bags of peeled garlic into the air for me to see. Someone is behind her metal cart filling small dips in a cast iron pan with oil, dough, and bean paste. The sun is shining and I climb the stairs to step onto train yard bridge. I complete my errands and chat with Im You Hee, who wears dark blue contacts. I am back before noon and quickly out again. Werrrrrkkkk.
Day 32
Train station 10:35. I'm late. 10:40. 10:50. Mark highsteps past me asking "Did you buy your ticket yet?" on the way. I barely utter "no" and he's 10 feet away. Nicole walks in explaining that the train we're catching leaves at 10:54.
Our seats are separate and I end up next to "Freddie", a businessman from Ghana. He gives me chocolate bars and offers to buy me an international phone card so I can call my grandmother. "Give me your phone number, I will call you with a phone card number."
Uh...thanks, Freddie, but I don't know..."You will come to Seoul soon?" No.
Haeyundae Beach and Pacific Shells. Coral? Too Beautiful.
I draw them in the sand, making patterns, getting wider wider. Away from shore, Korean Krishnas (?) drum and gong their way along the walk. No one pays them much mind.
Subway into Busan. Destination: Gwangalli Beach. People People it is 5 p.m. the beach is half full. The streets are half full.
4th Busan Fireworks Festival. Fire Flowers is the Korean term.
7 p.m. peoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeo
peoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeop
lepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepe
oplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeople
peoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeop
This must be what it is like to be a blood cell. Veins of people are striving to reach their destination in time. Must. Sit. Before. First. Fire. A crowd of 1.5 million people is on the beach. Or trying to be. I am one of them.
8 p.m.
Notes from the show:
Busan Bridge grows a glowing vine first red, then slowly colors cascade to the water.
Battleships or fakes. Shoot, they're shooting at one another with gold and red and smoke and the gold moon hangs low over a cityscape and WHAT are these flying flames?? Bird Kites!!! Glow gold red and stream green flying flaming over crowds and water. Phoenix. Phoenixes? Pheoni? The gold moon climbs higher slightly and stays large. A globe. Lazers? Do you see those lazers in the smoke? On the building! Oh! Light show!
What is this music? I can ignore it. I will listen to the story these "fire flowers" tell with my eyes.
Later...wander, wander, subway, wander, sleep.
Day 33
A morning train takes me home with Standing Room Only.
Taxi! Gimcheon Science Festival, please. I point to a street-lamp with a flag indicating the dates and times of the Festival. A student has a booth, I told her I would go. Too bad I don't know where it is or how to get there.
The driver nods and drives in the opposite direction. I figure he knows where he's going...until he stops at an intersection near my house and asks Right or Left? Stunned, I shake my head neither. He lets me out and gives me a W300 discount. Thanks, Driver.
What do thirteen year olds like? I try to figure it out and end up watching Hannah Montana, Jackass, Funny Home Videos, and Mr. Ed...some clips of Faith the Two-Legged Dog, and finally decide to look into some Mad Libs. I think that's pretty close to what they like. I think.
Day 34
Address postcards. Gluestick stamps to postcards. Post postcards.
Day 35
On the way to work, I remember that today, parents are coming to watch my class. No sweat. They're a good class, I'm a good teacher. It's fine. Until Mrs. Lee appears and is a flurry of nervous energy and Yuna, my co-teacher, is trying to explain to me the lesson plan, but can't fully and so enlists the aid of Cindy.
"What is going on?" the 3 o'clock "bell" goes off. It actually sounds more like a cell phone alarm. I ask for the folder I'm to teach from this hour.
"Mrs. Lee didn't tell you?"
"Tell me what?"
"You're supposed to..ahh...ummm...you watch students. They have.."
"Practice? I'm supposed to listen to them practice for this weekend?"
"Yes!"
"Where??" I am guided by the elbow by Sally to a room downstairs. She leaves and students file in. What is going on? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I ask students in the room to start their presentations. Mid-presentation, other teachers file in and sit down, other students come in and sit down...15 minutes into it all, Mrs. Lee comes in.
"Candida! sit sit sit come come come come, sit." What??
She rapid fires words at the room, sets up a fake podium bustles through the front of the room and instructs students to start over. She motions to me and asks me to go upstairs to practice for the 4 o'clock class.
"Very important day, today." Okay, I'll go practice.
How did it go? Oh, fine. It went fine. Fine...it's fine it's fine, slightly awkward, I mean just fine. great! fine. The kids are great. Timing is a little off and there's extra time in which Yuna and Mrs. Lee are mouthing "Speaking Time again Conversation Time again Sing A Song again" Okay.
After class, I think about the fireworks again. I wish for a camera. I wish for...I want to...the flaming kites. I can't believe they were real. Luckily, total strangers Sheri & Trav were there, too. And they made a video.
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