Best of the Rest of the Fests

Horsing Around
The number of festivals in this country is simply astounding; even as a foreigner who cannot speak the language, I have attended more festivals in the short time I have spent here than I did in the last year in Houston (my heart is breaking that I will be missing Art Crawl this year, however). We seem to stumble into them often, and also have the added benefit the veteran foreigners' combined years of experience to guide us. They are quite frequently travelling all about the island, bringing along anyone else that they can.

It was therefore surprising that the Jeju Horse Festival had hardly been mentioned, though I knew from a tourism pamphlet that it was taking place in early October. However, such pamphlets and postings are often incredibly wrong- I had, for instance, read in the very same source that the festival was in late September and was called the Pony Festival (it was not). So I set out one rainy day, taking a $12 cab ride (about 20 minutes) to the Jeju Horse Stadium, where I was relieved to find a festival actually taking place.

I had two very specific goals at this event, but it seemed that my late afternoon arrival had foiled them both. I had heard, weeks earlier while eating some raw fish, that a similar meal could be found in Jeju, known as malgogi hoe (by the way, I found out I was saying 횟 wrong, thanks to Wikipedia- there's a short 't-stop' at the end... no wonder my students had no idea what I was saying). Malgogi is the name for horse meat in Korea, thus malgogi hoe is raw horse meat. It is a very expensive meal but it's also undeniably uniquely Korean; how could I pass up my opportunity to try something like this while here? The steep price was no longer an issue when I learned, from the group of Koreans that came with us to Loveland, that the Horse Festival would have free malgogi hoe. Not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I decided I should give it a shot.

My second goal had far longer dwelt in my heart, since I first viewed a short promotional video of Jeju Island, and saw a spilt-second clip of what appeared to be two horses charging at each other. After some research, I learned that Jeju is one of the the last four cities in the world that has sanctioned horse fights. By which I mean, horse on horse combat. Everyone I asked about this, be they expats or natives, had no idea what I was talking about, and no doubt thought it was a strange question to ask. I was almost convinced that what I had read on the matter was incorrect, yet thought that if hope indeed remained to see such an event, it would be at the Horse Fest. It's not that I'm a fan of animal violence- of course I'm not- but I find this to be such an unusual practice that I feel like I would be missing out on something if I didn't experience it. Just like eating the raw horse or live octopus, right?

Walking through a food court full of the usual fried snacks, and what appeared to be a roast pig on a spit, I made my way to the small horse arena in the back of the grounds. I saw a large, crazed-looking stallion running after two mares, who were trying to politely refuse his advances by kicking him in the face. Not knowing what was happening, I stayed around and watched. These horse were soon thereafter brought back into the stables, and Mongolian trick riders came out and put on a riding show. They were pretty impressive, doing flips over the horse and jumping from one side to the other, though the rain which had just started caused them to make a few big mistakes. The downpour soon became torrential, and the furious neighing of the horses in the exposed trailers up the hill signalled that the day's outdoor festivities were over.

The special and genetically unique Mongolian-descended Jeju horse


Mongolian acrobat remounting his horse


What shame he has brought on his Mongolian brothers!


I left, clutching my backpack to my chest in the raging storm, and headed for the large building at the head of the park. On the way, however, I rain into a sign which confirmed what I had so long believed to be true. Despite what everyone else had said, I now had indisputable proof:

Horse-fighting was real!


I found out later that day from another foreigner that I had missed a session of horse combat by mere minutes, having arrived at the arena just after it ended. I also learned that the roasted 'pig' on the spit I passed in the food court was in fact a young horse, indistiguishable due to having it's legs removed, and now long-since packed up because of the rain. I was told that if there was malgogi hoe, it had long since been given out. I was 0 for 3.

The only consolation I had at the moment was gambling. I arrived at the large track building, where I met with a group of foreign teachers and tried to decipher the Korean language stat sheets. I picked a quinella and chose two horses whose names we had translated using a pocket dictionary, "Mountain Success Oyster" and "King-cloth Lord Zero". Neither of them did very well. Thus I went home empty-handed, having lost both 1,000 won (that sounds so much more dramatic than $1) and my shot at eating horse. I was disappointed to be sure, but there is no sense in beating a dead horse, so I'll move on.

Nucifer Rising
Last weekend, we had the unique opportunity to be shuttled around by a friend with a car. Such an experience really drives home the need of personal transportation on Jeju Island, with its many secrets lying well off the main roads. We had been invited to attend a nutmeg festival on Saturday, or rather, we thought we had, having misunderstood our friend at the bar a few nights earlier. We were in fact going to a nutmeg forest called Bijarim, full of very aged nutmeg trees. I for one had no idea nutmeg grew on trees, but it does- in this case, the Japanese torreya nucifera. The oldest of these was the millenium nutmeg, a 837-year old tree with a trunk quadruple the size of the others. It was so ancient and enormous that it had a number of small trees of a different species growing out of its massive trunk. A placard next to the tree claimed that it was the physical manifestation of the perserverance of the ancient Jeju people, and that it would guide them and protect them. A major cold front had come through that morning, and the meager coats we had brought provided little protection from the elements. I traded my warm sweatshirt for Alicia's paper-thin windbreaker, which was tight enough to make me look like I was wearing a wetsuit.



Millenium Nutmeg


Following the nutmeg forest, we attended (crashed, actually) the Korean TESOL dinner at a galbi (grilled pork) restaurant. I found it a bit strange that it was owned by a Buddhist couple, as I was under the impression that most Buddhists were vegetarian. The first thing we noticed was the massive magpie hopping about the floor. It was apparently a fixture at the restaurant, having it's own little perch under the 'daily specials' menu. The galbi here was different than anywhere else I've been to; they took the slabs of pork and smoked them in an oven over a wood fire, the result being not far from the barbeque back home in Texas. The method of delivery was by far the most amusing, as they would literally shovel the meat out of the oven, and bring said 'meat shovel' to the grill on the table. The handle was detachable, and the meat finished grilling on the shovel face at the table.

Magpie (I think his name was Chongi)


Meat Shovel!


An A-maze-ing Pumpkin Festival
I swear that will be the last forced pun in this entry.

That Sunday, we attended yet another of Jeju's myriad of festivals, the Pumpkin Festival. We had heard that there would free beer, and were therefore suprised to see a rather modest turnout from the foreigner population (many were undoubtedly still sleeping that afternoon, having stayed up until 6am to watch the New Zealand/England rugby championship game). The festival was held at the Kimnyeong Maze Park, which featured a large hedge maze. Seeing a number of children ringing the bell on the platform at the maze's end, I assumed that it would be simple. Instead, I wandered lost through the hedgy folds for nearly 45 minutes, occassionally crossing under a group of victorious youngsters celebrating their conquest of the labyrinth. I can only guess that I was over-thinking all of it, but I eventually made my way out. Returning, I saw that the pumpkin carving contest was nearing its end. I think the one below was my favorite. Alicia and a friend carved a traditional Jeju 'stone grandfather' statue, hoping that the judges' nationalism would win the contest for them, but soon found out that they were not the only ones to have that idea. They didn't win the contest, but the "Too Much Soju" pumpkin did take third place.

From one of the bridges in the course of the maze.


Lost.


"Too Much Soju"


It was, all in all, an easy, laid-back weekend. We finished it off with the excellent Indian food restaurant Bagdad, which is easily the best Indian food I've had anywhere. Next weekend should be much more exciting, as we attempt to make it to Daegu for a Halloween party. I'm still at a loss for what to do for a costume. I've got a Boy Scouts shirt here, so I may just keep it simple and go with that... but I'm open to suggestions. We've considered the Dog/Grill couple costume, but maybe that's a bit tacky.

Because anyone who has seen our costumes for the last two years will know, Alicia and I are all about classy Halloween costumes.