The Cherry Blossom Festival

Revelry into the Wee Hours

At one o'clock in the morning, Anne and I had just finished watching a movie when we decided to go out and have a look at the Cherry Blossom Festival. Anne told me that there would be people doing traditional singing and dancing well into the morning. I was sceptical. We drove out to Gyeryongsan, a local mountain, and despite the hour, there were a lot of cars going there with us. It was difficult to find a parking space.

A ceiling of white covers the road.

I must admit to being a little disappointed by what I saw there. Imagine a beautiful avenue of trees in full blossom. Imagine the blossoms are so thick that there seems to be a beautiful ceiling of white over the road. Imagine this road is out of the city, next to one of the most beautiful mountains in Korea. I understand that there isn't much to be disappointed about so far. The setting is perfect for a festival to celebrate this beauty. Now imagine every 30 meters there's a small area where people are dancing to tastelessly loud bad pop music. Imagine the general public are taking turns at communal microphones to sing along as loudly and badly as they can. Imagine so many tents along the road at which you can eat, drink or win fair-ground prizes that it's difficult to see the trees. I expected a celebration of natural beauty. What I saw was Korean night-life in all it's brash, loud and colourful exuberance.

Costumed entertainers sing and the people dance.

The most interesting thing I saw was the beggar's dance. In old Korea, beggars used to dance in the market to get money for food. The modern begger's dance involves a lot of colourful and ragged clothes, and quite a high percentage of cross-dressing. The singing was of quite a high standard, and I'm sure a lot of them were professional entertainers. Quite what these performances have to do with cherry-blossoms is beyond my ken.

The party seems to be at a low point at 2am. A pig on a spit waits for new customers to show up.

Even though there were a lot of cars and a lot of people, the festival was obviously running below capacity. I assumed that we were too late, as it was 2am at that point, but Anne told me that we were too early. We didn't wait around for it to get busy as we were pretty tired at that point.

Anne poses with two 'beggars', one cross-dressed.

Back