Hahoe Folk Village

Rob and I went to Andong yesterday, with the goal of visiting the Hahoe Folk Village. I took an enormous amount of photographs. I’ve only posted a handful here; to see the rest, please check out this set on flickr.

Anyhoo, the day got off to a slightly rocky start. For one thing, I awoke at exactly the point in time when I’d planned to be leaving my house. Whoops. After scurrying around like a madwoman, I managed to meet up with Rob and head off for the bus station. When I asked to purchase two tickets to Andong, the woman at the counter asked if I wanted to leave “now” – I assumed that was a bit of language barrier thing and that by “now” she meant the next bus. Turned out that she really did mean NOW, as the bus we purchased tickets for was leaving RIGHT THEN. This meant we got to race out into the parking lot, chase down the bus and beat on its door as it was pulling away. But we made it – whew!

An hour and a half or so later, we arrived in Andong. It was a gorgeous day: the sky was bright blue, accentuated with little puffy clouds here and there. And unlike in Daegu, the skies above Andong were clear, not filled with the haze of pollution. Directly across from the bus station, we spied a small playground, filled with statues of a variety of animals (camels, elephants, rhinos, etc), which we felt we *must* climb on and photograph. The playground also had a replica of the Jebiwon Buddha.

I ride an elephant

Rob rides a camel


Buddha in the playground

After playing about on the playground, we headed down to the train station, where we knew a tourist information booth was located. We wanted to visit the nearby Hahoe Folk Village, but didn’t know how to get there. The tourist information people were quite on the ball. We were given a map of Andong (in both English and Korean) and a bus time table (also in both languages). We learned that we needed to take bus 46, which would be leaving from the bus stop opposite the train station and to the left at 2:05. That gave us nearly an hour to go forage for some food.

We entered a local restaurant, which offered bibimbop on its menu. (If you’re in a hurry, bibimbop – a rice and vegetable dish – is always a good choice.) The owners of the restaurant, however, we quite insistent that I try their specialty instead. Their specialty was some kind of soup. It was quite delicious, except for one scary, unidentifiable object floating in it. Rob took photos of this object, but until he gets his pics online, let me describe it for you: it was a dark maroon color, and was very porous, like a sponge. However, while it was a little squishy, it was nowhere near as soft as one would expect of something so porous. I took a very small nibble of it and decided that it was something I very much did NOT want to eat. The rest of the soup, however, was delicious.

After lunch we made our way to the bus stop, and boarded bus 46 for the Hahoe Folk Village. If you’re wondering what this folk village is, I suggest reading the wikipedia entry which is quite informative. We arrived at Hahoe shortly before 3:00, and were told that a mask dance show was getting ready to begin. This was excellent timing! I certainly didn’t understand all of what happened during the show, but based on the visuals, I can give you a run down:

A group of traditional Korean musicians came out first, and arrayed themselves on the stage. Then a masked woman was carried around the stage on the shoulders of a man.

Here she is!

Next came a masked man, who began dancing, speaking and singing.

Then an anatomically correct bull appeared on the stage. The bull first made its way around the audience. In addition to being anatomically correct, they had rigged it with a water bottle, so that it could lift its leg (like a dog, not so much like a bull) and “urinate” on the crowd. Being that it was so unbearably hot, even in the shade, this was actually quite pleasant. The masked man and the bull faced off… then the man conked the bull on the head three times with a hammer, killed it, and proceeded to disembowel it, then run about waving its testicles. Yeah.

Man and bull face off...

...and man wins.

Next came a scantily clad "old woman"
(she was portrayed by a fairly young man)

Followed by a demure maiden...

And a skeezy old dude intent on wooing her.

Then came a drunken old dude character.

The drunken old dude first pulled a Korean woman out of the crowd. Then, while talking to her he said “Waygookan” (foreigner) and pointed in our direction.

This was the point where Rob and I simultaneously said Uh-oh!
Luckily, they came for him.

Rob got to his version of the Hahoe Mask Dance

(Hahaha!)

The bizarre mask dance show came to an end soon thereafter, and we made our way out into the Hahoe Folk Village itself. I must admit, I expected it to be a model village, not an actual one where in people live traditionally – which is what turned out to be the case. (Well, augmented by TV antennas and SUVs and other modern trappings…) Anyway, the village was beautiful, and full of all sorts of hutville-esque thatched roofed domiciles and a plethora of minbaks (cheap hotels in which one sleeps on the floor). We wandered about and took numerous photographs.

The Hahoe Folk Village as seen across the rice fields

Inside the village

I think this is a minbak.

I thought this tree was gorgeous!

I look like a hobbit!

We found a very large swing...

...and swang!

We waked up the hill to this picturesque dwelling...

...and found a demonstration on the proper etiquette of tea drinking.

See the flowers floating in the teapot? Yum!

We took a boat across the nearby river
(powered the old fashioned way!)

The view from across the river was beautiful.

There are plenty more photos where those came from...
view them here!