Sunday, April 20, 2008

Korean Traditional Drink and Rice Cake Festival

As my friend Nina put it, Saturday was an unusual day in that Gyeongju was "the place to be instead of the place to leave." We foreigners love it here, but in all honesty, there isn't usually a lot going on in Gyeongju. Saturday, however, was certainly the exception. This was the weekend of the "Korean Traditional Drink and Rice Cake Festival," an event that had foreigners pouring in from Daegu and even as far away as Seoul. Since we foreigners who live here are pretty isolated, we got rather excited at seeing other foreigners. I think our enthusiasm may have startled them a bit!
The festival was a lot of fun. I went with Jaime and Ashley, and then we met up with Lizzi, Nina, and Nina's friend Josephine, who teaches in Seoul. At some point, we abandoned Jaime and Ashley. Oops! There was loads to see, such as people baking traditional Korean bread and making rice cakes. There were also traditional drummers parading about and a beauty contest. At many of the tents, you could sample different types of rice cakes or different Korean wines.
Baking Hwangnam bread inside one of the hundreds of tents.
Pounding rice to create rice cakes. Rice cakes are not fluffy little cakes, but rather glutinous blobs created from smashed rice and then frequently stuffed with red bean paste and/or covered in something like sesame seeds or cinnamon. Sounds a little gross, I know, but actually they're pretty tasty (just a bit odd the first time you try one).
Rice cakes for sale. I bought a box of the ones on the far right, which are filled with sweetened red bean paste.
A small parade of drummers. They were pretty talented.

As always, we foreigners were treated like celebrities. We got interviewed by a TV crew, photographed several dozen times (no exaggeration), and greeted in English by at least a hundred Koreans. I apparently am irresistible to cute little old ladies, so I got my elbows squeezed or my arms rubbed (??) so many times that I lost count. I had the pleasure of running into four of my students, including two of my favorites, Rose and Sally (twin sisters). Their mother doesn't speak much English, but she was delighted when I told her that she had two "very good girls."

The only part I didn't enjoy was when a middle-aged man became enamored by me. He wanted to hug me, which I'm accustomed to Koreans doing by now, but then he got a really good grip on me and tried repeatedly to kiss me. Luckily, my revulsion was stronger than his ardor, so my lips escaped any unwanted contact. I wish I could say the same for my cheek! He must have kissed my cheek about six or seven times. Let's just say that was a layer of skin that got exfoliated as soon as I got home!

Below are some videos I took of rice cakes being made:

First, the cooked rice is gathered together into a pile. The guy demonstrating was a bit of a ham, as you'll see. Sorry about the lighting - it was a very sunny day.

Next, the man soaked a huge wooden hammer in water, then began pounding the rice.

The man was later joined by another guy, who helped him to pound the snot out of the rice. As you may have noticed, we were standing within mere feet of the demonstration. In case you're wondering, yes, we did get splattered with rice!
Finally, the smashed up rice gloop was rolled into a tube and cut into small pieces, which were then smothered in cinnamon. Yummy!

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