Lantern Procession
Originally uploaded by annamatic3000.
Gavin and I had a visitor. On Friday, a large black spider made his first appearance in our bathroom, hiding out in the area behind the toilet bowl. In general, although I am creeped out by them, I don't kill spiders. Mainly because they eat other insects, partly because of Charlotte's Web. He was large enough for us to imagine that he might have human-like characteristics. We named him Lester. Lester was friendly, but somewhat shy -- not really sociable -- which was just as well, as we didn't really want to socialize with him. Not particularly adventuresome, he didn't move around much, but seemed to be content with his one spot behind the toilet. Today, however, Lester made an unfortunate foray into the bedroom area. Much as I was beginning to like Lester, some screams later, Gavin and I decided that Lester had to go. If we couldn't count on him to stay put in the bathroom, then we would constantly have to worry about his whereabouts, and that just would not do. And so with some trepidation, I scooped him up in a yogurt container and tossed him into the garden. Lester paused for a moment at the edge of the garden path, waving his front legs at us, as if to say goodbye. Then he disappeared into the grass. Bye, Lester!
Yesterday, Gavin and I saw a tango performance near Hongdae (one of my coworkers has been studying Argentinean tango for years and was performing with her dance class this weekend). The music was romantic and nostalgic and kinda made me think of old black and white movies from the 1940s. Watching any performance is a pleasure when the performers can render their art (in this case, dance) as a pure language that requires no translation. In this sense, maybe music and dance are purer forms of communication than speech or even the visual arts.
Also, last night we went to see the Buddha's Birthday festival. On parade were Korean traditional drummers and dancers, monks, baby monks, and women and men wearing hanbok (traditional Korean dress) and carrying colorful lanterns. But the most exciting things for me were the large lantern floats, crafted into the shapes of Buddhist animals and characters. Some of them were merely inflated plastic, but an impressive number were handpainted, handcrafted paper lanterns. With a warm soft glow flickering from within, they really lit up the night gracefully. Next weekend is also a three day weekend -- Friday is Buddha's Birthday -- so I'm sure we'll be checking out more of the festivities then.
