Lotus Lantern

If you ever want to know why I like living in Korea, it's because last Saturday evening at 9pm I was stood in the middle of Yongdusan Park with thousands of other people, immersed in the 2011 Busan Lotus Lantern Festival (there's another in Seoul). By contrast, the only reason you go to a park after dark in my city is to shoot up hard drugs or get murdered. And while there are things to do and places to go after dark, it involves locking yourself in your car and hoping someone doesn’t ram you from behind in one of the bad neighbourhoods which are too numerous to avoid, as part of an insurance fraud or carjacking.

During my first stay in Korea, I saw a lot of places and did a lot of things, and now I have a child I have to reluctantly acknowledge that it was a more carefree lifestyle which might never be fully regained. So whereas once we would have made a date to visit Yongdusan Park on Saturday evening for the Busan Lotus Lantern Festival, and culmination of the three-day Joseon Tongsinsa Festival – it was past our son's bedtime and we thought we probably wouldn't make it unless he was in a good mood. But Thursday was Children's Day in Korea, so we went then instead, after lunch. The lanterns were out but the effect was obviously less impressive in the daytime, and we're getting to that time of year where the heat and humidity are becoming uncomfortable, which also detracts a little from the experience.

As things were, we actually did manage to get back on Saturday, although it didn't quite work out as planned. The event was scheduled to begin at 8pm, but it was late starting, and we didn't really think through the nature of the event. We went for the lanterns, but there was a parade. Korean parades are often noisy affairs, and when the lights were finally turned on and this one arrived, it was no different. To an extent you can move away from the samulnori and other sundry musicians, but there was no escape from the on-stage performances which were so loud over the speakers I left the park barely able to hear myself speak - this is not an exaggeration. I haven't experienced anything like it since university. Add fireworks into the mix, which admittedly were rather nicely enhanced by the fog, and it explains why my wife - concerned about our baby’s hearing - immediately fled from the park with several other parents.

Now our baby is old enough to start seriously venturing from the confines of the apartment, it's occurring to me for the first time that, at least as far as festivals and other events are concerned, Korea may not be particularly baby friendly. Maybe there's a way of holding an event like this without getting noise complaints from Japan, but if there is it hasn't crossed the organisers' minds.

Unfortunately at the point at which my wife ran away we were separated, and she had my phone, leaving me with Korean Mother who had taken a seat near the stage and was largely inaccessible – not just because of the language barrier. I spent at least thirty minutes looking for my wife and child, although it could have been longer since without my phone, I didn't know the time either. I discovered why I couldn’t find my immediate family once I worked my way to Korean Mother. "Shall we go?" I asked in Korean, but she said no, she was having fun. I lacked the depth of language to ascertain whether she was saying this for my benefit or not, and I didn't want to press the issue by emphasising that it was really OK to leave, because I was afraid of dragging her away from something she wanted to stay at. Predictably, it later transpired that while she was enjoying the event, she also mainly staying for my benefit.

The misunderstandings meant that I saw the events through to their conclusion. Confusion, noise, colour, laughter, large crowds, barely organised chaos among the performers and the possibility of permanent physical damage afterwards - the Festival was a microcosm of life in Korea, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Busan e-FM Week 15: Lunar New Year

About 'Open Mike in Busan'

Introduction

This week’s subject is Lunar New Year. We don’t use a lunar calendar in Western countries, so when I came here it was new to me in some ways, although I had to adjust to the notion of lunar years a long time before.

Family

When I arrived for my first day of studying Computer Science at university I ended up joining the wrong queue – I nearly became an archaeologist – and the Chinese guy in front of me was also a Computer Scientist in the wrong queue. We became friends and I spent most of my university life mixing with the Chinese community – so I became quite familiar with lunar new year celebrations, but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating sometimes because it’s a very family oriented time, and it reminds me that my family are over 5,000 miles away.

I read in a Korean newspaper that 15 million people here are going home for ‘설날’ [Seolnal/Seollal – the Lunar New Year], and it reminds me that – as a foreigner in Korea, married to a Korean – I’m spending my holidays with someone else’s family. Actually, my mother is over 70 now and she’s beginning to think that if I go back every two years she might only see me another three or four times. That’s hard to hear – and I think of that a lot now when we have these regular Korean family gatherings.

But you have to choose to live in one country or the other, and Lunar New Year isn’t as bad as Christmas because it’s just a normal working day in England – I’m not missing out on gift-giving or anything like that. Actually in Korea, 설날 gifts are one of the strange things that I didn’t expect.

Gifts

It’s not that I didn’t expect people to be giving each other gifts, but it’s the type of gifts. For example, before 설날 a couple of years ago, a huge amount of frozen fish turned up in a box at our mother-in-law’s apartment, so it’s not quite like Christmas in England, where you’d never give someone fish or fruit. But in some ways the strangest gifts are the ones in the stores, I have to admit that I find them quite bizarre sometimes.

Part of it is a cultural thing. Here I see big gift boxes of SPAM for example, and in England SPAM was traditionally viewed as a rather low-class meat product. I suppose you might describe it as ubiquitous – but not everything which is ubiquitous is good – the ‘flu virus is ubiquitous but it doesn’t mean you want to have it. [I admit – I’m sick of hearing the popular Korean-English marketing word ‘ubiquitous’ here and now I’m just getting my own back.] In fact, one of the reasons junk email is called spam is because of a British comedy sketch [Monty Python of course - video] which just repeats the word “spam” over and over annoyingly. So you don’t buy people gift boxes of SPAM in England. The other gift that really sticks in my mind is the bulk anti-calculus [you read that right] toothpaste box. If someone bought me toothpaste for a gift, I might think it meant my breath smells.

Various Lunar New Years

One Lunar New Year here, we had a very long day. We started out with the special New Year’s breakfast of rice soup (떡국) – I was told it was at this point my Korean age advanced by one year. I find this whole business of lunar ages really confusing as well, and Korean ages always seem to make me older than I actually am and that’s just not good news, is it? Then we went out, and even though I’d read foreigners warning each other to stock up on food before 설날 because all the shops would be shut, I still found the fact that all the stores really were closed surprising, considering how everything’s open every other day of the year. It really tells you what a big event it is. Anyway, we went out to hike up a mountain to a series of temples to make offerings. As a non-Buddhist, visiting temples is an interesting experience, but it’s not a religious obligation for me, although I seem to end up participating in the rituals, which is quite strange.

After visiting the temples, usually there’s some time then before the family gathering in the evening, although one year we spent the afternoon with my mother-in-law’s sister. She’s a Buddhist fortune teller so I call her my ‘psychic aunt’. She performed some Buddhist new year rituals, including chanting in front of the shrine in her house. It was quite beautiful actually. And then she read our fortunes, which was quite frightening in a way because – apparently – she is very, very good. Even though I’m not a Buddhist, I’ve heard enough to not completely dismiss the power of her fortune telling.

Seollal

So my mother-in-law usually hosts the family gatherings in the evening, which means my wife often helps her mother prepare food – and I don’t – so I feel like I’ve slipped into a typical Korean husband’s role sometimes. Of course, we have all the big bows to go through to show respect to our elders, and the money gifts along with the ‘imparting of wisdom’ speech or ‘advice’ afterwards, which is quite strange when you’re in your thirties. Nothing quite like that happens in England, although I guess parents still lecture you – it’s just that there’s not a specific date they do it on.

I think there can be a general atmosphere of tension on 설날, especially in our mixed Christian and Buddhist family. My wife’s uncle, who’s a Christian pastor, said he tries to celebrate 설날 is a ‘Christian way’, but I’m not sure what that means. I’ve also leaned though how food can really bring people of different backgrounds together over the dinner table. Of course, food is so important in Korea, so I soon discovered that on the 15th day after the start of the new year there’s another special breakfast for Jeongwol Daeboreum (정월대보름), and a special festival - ‘The Burning of the Moon House’ - 달집태우기 – on Dadaepo Beach here in Busan.

The Burning of the Moon House and Audience

I went to the Burning of the Moon House last year. I understood that the 15th day is traditionally when evil spirits are cast out. I find it odd though that the new beginning can’t just begin on the first day like it does with a Western new year.

I gathered that it’s important that the bonfire burns all the way through, because if it does this indicates a good harvest, and if it doesn’t then there won’t be one. But maybe that makes people a little too enthusiastic about designing them to burn ferociously. We weren’t that close to the fire, but before long burning ash and rubbish started falling quite heavily on us, and the organisers were rather urgently shouting over the speakers “Move away! Move away!” It was quite chaotic but it certainly did help chase me away – so I guess it really does cast out evil spirits.

Links
Busan e-FM
Inside Out Busan

Air date: 2011-02-02 @ ~19:30

Busan e-FM Week 6: Busan Festivals, Events and Places

About 'Open Mike in Busan'

Background

By the time I reached my sixth week at Busan e-FM, they’d moved from the centrally-based Yeonsan-dong KNN building to Centum City in Haeundae, in the increasingly fashionable Eastern fringe of the city, where KNN are building their monstrous new headquarters.

Introduction

As everyone knows, there’s certainly always a lot happening in Busan, so for my sixth week on Inside Out Busan at Busan e-FM, I thought I’d talk about some of my experiences visiting festivals, and going out to various events and places here in the city.

Busan Fireworks Festival

My first festival was the Busan Fireworks Festival in 2006 – I think it was only the second year they’d held it then. I remember when we reached the nearby subway station many people rushed off the train and walked fast – or even ran – towards the beach. It gave me a real sense that something exciting was about to take place.

And it was exciting. Sometimes it feels that Korea is a little too obsessed with Seoul, but Busan has the sea and its beaches, and you can’t get that in the capital. It was a bit cold, and sitting on pebbles for three hours isn’t the most comfortable thing in the world – but that was the point I thought that maybe Busan was a better city to live in. Actually I was listening to ‘What’s Popin Busan’ on Busan e-FM a few weeks ago, and the Fireworks Festival sounds even better now. Also, showing movies afterwards is good – when we went it just ended and everyone headed off the beach at the same time. There was a crush and it was a little worrying.

I haven’t been again since. I live in Saha-gu so coming to events in Haeundae can mean two to three hours of travelling. I have to admit, it does put me off sometimes. But it wasn’t long before I was back in the Haeundae area for the New Year’s Sunrise Festival.

Being on the beach at 6am

So the Sunrise Festival meant being on the beach at 6am. We don’t have this culture of watching sunrises in England, so I was really surprised at just how many people were there – tens of thousands I’m sure. Unfortunately it was cloudy. Eventually we saw the sun about forty minutes after it rose. And there wasn’t much to do except stand and wait. I’m glad we did it though – it’s certainly an interesting way to start the year. But of course, you can’t predict the weather.

And many other places

Actually, it could have been worse. Last year I went to the Last Sunset Festival on Dadaepo Beach – it was about minus ten degrees and my hands were shaking so much I could hardly take photos properly. It was the same with the Pusan International Film Festival – we saw a movie outside but it was a bit too cold to enjoy it that year. I think PIFF has been held a bit earlier in the last couple of years.

It certainly feels like I’ve been to a lot of festivals in Busan during my time here. I try to get out and do things. Of course, it’s not just about festivals, becase there are a lot of shows and concerts going on. Maybe compared to Seoul, Busan doesn’t have a big reputation as a cultural centre, but I think that’s unfair because there seems to be far more happening here than I’d ever find it possible to experience.

Although there is the language barrier problem

The language barrier presents problems though. Sometimes there isn’t any information in English, even at visiting foreign exhibitions such as those held at the Busan Museum of Modern Art. I’ve been to performances such as the famous Nanta because it’s non-verbal, but I can’t go and watch a Korean stage play, or anything in the Korean language. That works both ways – because when foreign actos come over here, it really has to be for non-verbal performances too. And I’ve seen how that can be a problem.

I’ve seen foreign performers have difficulties here. I attended a French stage play by a famous choreographer as part of the Busan Intenational Performing Arts Festival – it was called 'Comédie!' There was a question and answer session afterwards with the performers, and the first person to stand up basically said "the performance is called Comedy and it’s pitched as a comedy... but it didn’t seem funny." It was really rather awkward. On the other hand, I was quite nervous when the famous British-based mime artist Nola Rae did a performance at Kyungsung University, but the audience seemed to like that.

Music concerts are sometimes easier in terms of language. I’ve seen Jeon Jeduk and Malo here, but I got the impression – from what’s been said – that quite a few famous entertainers from Seoul don’t often come down to Busan, because they don’t feel the need to, which is a real shame if that’s true.

I think – quite often – the costs of these events can be quite high, but actually one of the best performances I attended was by a choir – the Busan Metropolitan City Chorus – and the tickets were only 1,000 won. I think the local government subsidised that.

Sport

Baseball is another cheap recommendation. I went to a baseball game – the Lotte Giants at Sajik Stadium – and it only cost 6,000 won. We don’t play baseball in England, so that was a really amazing experience, especially because of the noisy crowd. A few years ago I watched a movie called Mr. Baseball about an ex-New York Yankee playing in Japan, and it really seemed to capture the atmosphere of Japanese baseball. I kind of hoped that Korean baseball would be the same – and it really was. They have people in the crowd encouraging them to be noisy, it was great. It’s a shame I don’t really understand the game very well, but if I ever get the time I could see myself really getting into it.

I’ve also been to see KT Sonicboom. Basketball’s not popular in England either, so that was the first time I’d seen a game. I expected it to be a bit quieter – but they still had a guy in front of us encouraging the crowd, so it was noisy. I’m not so sure about having very young cheerleaders dancing right in front of me though. That was a bit much. I could see myself developing a taste for basketball though. I guess that as an English person living in Korea, I have to accept becoming more Americanised when it comes to sport, because sports which are popular in England, such as football, really aren’t that popular here – except when the national team plays.

Favourite places

Because I live in the west of Busan, I spend a lot of time in Nampodong. It’s mainly about shopping and eating there, but it has two large cinemas opposite each other, and one of those rare independent cinemas showing more obscure foreign films a little further up.

Bosudong Book Street is nearby, with dozens of book stores and all its cultural heritage. Because of technology, I fear we might be seeing the end of an era there. And despite the distance, I do like Haeundae; it’s nice to eat of drink with a view of the sea – and of course, it’s an advantage Busan has over Seoul.

Then another thing, although I haven’t done it too much, is climbing mountains at night such as Hwangryeongsan, to take photos of the city, because there really are some spectacular views of Busan to be found.

So I can’t see that I’ll ever get bored here. Maybe this isn’t Seoul, but I think the authorities in Busan seem to be trying really hard to make this a culturally interesting city. I honestly feel overwhelmed sometimes by how much there is to see and do.


Links
Busan e-FM
Inside Out Busan

Air date: 2010-12-01 @ ~19:30

The Sandman

When I discovered that finance ministers and central bankers from the G-20 were meeting in Busan I felt like I wanted to go and stand outside the hotel to watch because suddenly, as a financial trader, my world was coming to me - here in the relative backwater that is Korea's second city, and I wondered if I would ever again be in the presence of so much collective inaction. But as events transpired, by the time they reached Busan, all I wanted to do was catch a glimpse of the British Chancellor of the Exchequer and shout “Stop letting President Obama kick sand in our faces, Mr. Osborne!” (a long story of Brit-bashing and appalling double standards, especially considering how Britain dealt with Piper Alpha).

But when we reached The Westin Chosun Hotel where the G-20 meeting was being held, it was by a complete coincidence. We'd decided some time ago to attend the Haeundae 'Sand Festival' not realising its proximity to the meeting either on the calendar or geographically. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I didn't get to see my country's finance minister while walking past a stationary policeman every three meters on wooded path near the Hotel. As much as I would have loved to take a photo of the scene, that would most likely result in arrest in my country these days, and while twenty-three years after the end of military government Korea's normal policing style could best be described as 'apologetic', I wasn't going to push my luck.

My wife expressed a casual hope that the North Koreans wouldn't decide to attack Haeundae Beach while we were there. That's the thing about our northern neighbour - you have to think of the most reckless thing they could possibly do, and assume that sooner or later, they'll try it. It didn't seem quite such an absurd idea five minutes later when the sirens went off and I was treated to the sight of lots of Koreans all looking at each other in confusion. The first people I looked at were the police - who appeared completely unconcerned as usual. I suppose it must be normal. We don't get to Haeundae Beach very often - the poor part of town is too far away.



What wasn't quite as normal was the building that was evidently on fire at the far end of the beach, spewing somewhat unpleasant smoke down towards us from time to time. It probably wasn't quite the image the Korean authorities wanted to their international guests with their grandstand view in the hotel.

I did eventually find a smiling fat-cat, but not from The Westin Chosun - it was a sand-sculpture.

We may have arrived at the beach too early in the day. There weren't huge numbers of sculptures - a number were by the same Dutch artist, Jeroen Advocaat, and although a competition with around twenty amateur entrants seemed to be slowly getting under way it was clearly going to take some time to come to fruition. A dance contest was nowhere near beginning and further down the beach a sand-surfing ramp and football pitches were similarly lacking in activity. What I did find was a rather fascinating memorial to the Korean War - but more on this later.

I reached the end of the beach and the building which was belching smoke. It was not entirely surprising to find that it was having some construction work done - it often seems to be the way.

Unfortunately shortly after taking these shots I saw a casualty being loaded into an ambulance, escalating it from another one of those all-too-common unattended under-construction fires to something more serious.

By the time I was half-way back the football had started, but that was about the only development. Much like the G-20 finance ministers over the last two years, I guess our timing was a little off.

Comédie!

Another weekend another festival. This time it was the Busan International Performing Arts Festival, or 'BIPAF'. Invariably all festivals in Busan are inexplicably 'International', but this one genuinely warrants the name in that it involved productions from France, Italy, Japan, Taiwan, Russia, as well as Korea. We travelled to the 'Busan Cultural Center' in Daeyeondong, Namgu, to see a performance unambiguously titled 'Comedy' by the - according to the announcer beforehand - 'world famous' Nasser Martin-Gousset Company otherwise known as 'La Maison'. I can't speak to the veracity of this claim, but Nasser Martin Gousset does at least have a page on the French version of Wikipedia.

I'm still at the stage in Korea where I'm not necessarily clear on exactly where we are going until I get there, so I was surprised to find that the Cultural Center was perched on a hill overlooking the U.N. Cemetery which I've seen in passing before, but have yet to actually visit despite it being on my list of places to go. On a clear day the views over the city must be good - but this wasn't quite one of them. Busan has very few perfectly clear days in my experience.

The complex itself seems impressive, though I had little time to look around. There's a small park on one side of the grounds, for once reminiscent of a proper English park rather than being a codeword for 'somewhere that hasn't been built on yet'. The large buildings and their positioning relative to the city suggest that this is a place where culture is taken seriously, so Busan did well there.

The production itself seemed to begin in the manner one might expect of a traditional farce. A theft is attempted before the stage gives way to a party, complete with live jazz musicians who play at various points through the performance. The performers do well to bring the supposed 1960's atmosphere to life, but there came a point at which I began to wonder whether it was really funny. Korean humour is not, in my experience, generally noted for its subtlety, and if I, coming from a country noted for its sometimes dark, dry and often odd sense of humour, didn't get it, I wondered how the Koreans were faring. It's tempting as an English person sat feet away from fifteen French people to feel some affinity towards them - we are geographical neighbours after all - but by the time proceedings drew to a close, I was questioning the cultural divide between us was larger than the narrowness of 'La Manche' suggested.

There was a question and answer session after the end, and my wife wondered whether we should stay. It had at least been interesting, and for an event subtitled 'Defining the Boundaries of Theatre', this goal had certainly been attained in the mixing of a stage-play and live jazz music in a performance with an apparently unapologetically disjointed narrative, titled and pitched as something it might not quite be. I'm not going to pretend though - sometimes you just have to call it - it didn't click for me. Maybe that's because it strayed into "L'art pour l'art" - Art for Art's Sake - and being from both a working class and science background I need to find meaning in what I see. Perhaps I'm just not qualified to offer a critique.

The first question was not so much a question as a statement - a man stood up and said that the performance was called 'Comedy' and it was pitched as a comedy, but it didn't seem funny. A horrific silence momentarily descended over the theatre as the translator faced the reality of having to translate that. I wondered whether the BIPAF organisers had been remiss in their descriptions, because they certainly had been when they told a friend of ours it was fine to bring her ten-year old daughter - possible drug-taking, nudity in obvious silhouette behind a lit screen, simulated sex in closets, questionable acts of intimacy in public, cigar smoke wafting over the audience, all mixed with alcohol abuse and stabbings with scissors, might not be what you would ordinary choose to expose your child to. Personally, most of that's more my level, and I always welcome public displays of suggested homosexuality in the hope it encourages greater tolerance. But the director stood his ground, and follow-up questions pressed the issue. Sat in the second row, I felt trapped in the middle of a cultural clash, the mood of which might well be dangerously deteriorating, and even though there were fifteen performers - the most foreigners I've ever seen together in my time in Korea - I comforted myself in the belief that if they rushed us the remaining audience could probably fight them off.

The truth is it must be hard to face the cultural divide after working so hard for ninety minutes, and I really felt for them. It seems the French just can't catch a break in this country. Still, there is one stereotype in which English people radically differ from their French neighbours - our supposed 'stiff-upper lip' forces us to hide our true feelings in the face of adversity - something I find to be an extremely important survival attribute in Korea. French people on the other hand, have a rather delightful if possibly misunderstood reputation for not always hiding their unhappiness. I noticed immediately once the questions began, but said nothing. The Koreans in our party noticed anyway. Somehow the photo I took of the question and answer session reminded me of Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper, and the mood was about as ominous.

5,600 miles is a long way to travel to be told you're not funny. I know.

The clash of cultures continued as Korea's hierarchical society next wanted each performer to state their age. One lady answered 'twelve'. Bravo!

Fortunately some less controversial questions and statements were made, and then the mood was somewhat salvaged by the Asian performer on the stage. She was asked via the translator if she was Korean. Logically, the chances of this were astronomically low despite the Korean-Wave belief that Koreans might in fact be secretly involved in every facet of society overseas. But she was. This was a major revelation for almost everyone concerned, including it seemed, our Korean translator who had seemed to struggle in her role. The Korean-French performer then largely took over the answering of questions, the mood warmed up, everyone left more placated and a fight was avoided.

The Kite Runner

The 40th Busan International Kite Festival was held this weekend, so yesterday we went along to watch and fly kites of our own around the periphery of the event, which apparently is the done thing. This involved actually buying a kite first, but given that kite flying is a reasonably popular activity in Busan, it isn't that difficult to find shops selling them in appropriate locations.

The Festival was being held at Dadaepo Beach. During my first 18-month stay in Korea, and even though some of it was a bit of a blur, I'm fairly sure I only visited Dadaepo Beach once, and that was only in passing as a break between driving from one place to another. In the last three months, I've been back there for the Last Sunset Festival, the Jeongweol Daeboreum Festival and now the International Kite Festival. Suddenly, Dadaepo Beach seems to be a hive of festival activity.

Like many things I experience in Korea, I had no few preconceived ideas as to what to expect, but having never seen one-hundred foot long kites before, I was in for a surprise when they swung into view over Dadaepo Bay. It looked exciting. There were festival tents and a large banner promised 'Folk Games Big Party'. But in truth, not a lot seemed to be actually happening - or not in an organised way at least. Dadaepo Beach was full of people flying their kites in a private capacity. Most were small but there were obviously a few more hard-core individuals controlling larger - and noisier - aerial displays. It seems I also hadn't realised that by fitting a kite with an audible device, the swooping and diving can be accompanied by a rather alarming noise.

But while flying a kite may offer some interactivity, watching people keep their kites in the air wasn't much of a spectator sport, so I wandered down the beach where I thought I'd spotted Korean Batman, who actually turned out to be a kitesurfer getting ready to take to the water.

In fact, some kitesurfers were already in the water. It was unclear whether they had any connection with the Festival or merely happened to be doing what they always did on a Sunday afternoon. I rather suspected the latter. Dadaepo Beach seems to be one of those 'anything goes' type of places.

Back at the tents a few people were playing traditional Korean games, one of which involved throwing an arrow into a cylindrical tube. But generally, while there were a lot of tents, not much was happening in most of them. A few had kites on display, while many of the others were either empty or had been commandeered by people to sit down in.

I understand that Saturday saw the elimination rounds of a kite competition and that Sunday would therefore see the finals. This might have explained the apparent lack of official activity. I can't say what stage of the final it was that eventually did begin, but two men took to different podiums on the beach and readied their kites. If the judge venting his anger at both competitors was anything to go by, this was a very serious business. Apparently this was to be a 'kite fight'. It wasn't at all clear what this involved but as I watched both kites in the air positioning themselves it seemed to have all the excitement of a slow game of chess. The friends we'd come with wanted to go and eat what would be a very late lunch so we left at this point. I didn't feel I was missing much, which is a pity because afterwards I learned that Kite Fighting is a proper sport in Korea and it certainly sounds like it gets more interesting than anything I saw. As we walked to our car, one of the men could be seen running to pick up his severed kite.

Generally, the 40th Busan International Kite Festival was interesting, but oddly anarchic.