The last couple of weekends have been bursting with Korean pride here in NYC and I was lucky enough to catch it all. The weekend before there was a street festival right in KTown on 32nd street, and last weekend was a 2 day festival in Flushing.
I had completely forgotten about the first one, and was completely surprised as I hit Korea town just a few minutes before my Korean class. It was raining and gross, but the street was filled with tents of with people hawking goods an services. There were babies in hanboks! I was so bummed that 1) I had gotten there so late and missed, apparently girls on the main stage doing the fan dance (hence the babies in hanboks) and 2) that I was going to have to spend the next hour and a half in class, instead of being outside experiencing everything.
This bitterness was of course made worse by the fact that, on the third floor, we could still hear the drums thundering from the street. Luckily after class ended the swirls of drummers were still happily performing in the street.
Here is a video I took.
After that I wandered the street and saw the real life Khotties working the new Skin Food booth, and then there she was, the actual Miss Korea!
I of course couldn’t help but think of the drama Miss Korea, and wondered what sort of story was behind her win.
The food booths were interesting and is probably one of the only times we’ll have actual street food, ahjumma’s and ahjussi’s hawking dukboki, fish cakes, and duk.
The festival in Flushing was a much larger affair, taking place in Corona Park. I had no idea how large the park was, until I tried to find this thing. Luckily Mari’s direction, look for the globe, was very helpful.
There were tents hawking Korean wears, businesses and services.
This one made me think of Greatest Love, where the 2nd lead had the oriental hospital.
There was actually very little English to be seen.
Here we got to see lots of ahjummas in hanbok’s and even the random ahjussi in the (whatever the word is for male traditional wear).
It was fun to see advertisements for shows I actually know!
There were lots of food stalls, and I had a hard time choosing what to eat.
There were various events like drummers and even some wrestling! It was pretty exciting and kept reminding me of Running Man.
Round One
Round Two
Round Three
Funny thing, is the guy who won, they kept calling him Waegukin. It was probably one of the few things I could understand what they said.
Throughout it, they had a big stage where they gave out lots of awards in Korean, people talking, in Korean, and then some performances…ahem. Also in Korean.
To the guy in the yamika who shouted at the band to speak in English? Go fudge yourself. You’re at a Korean festival. A festival for Korean people by Korean people.
Anywhoo…my favorite performers were most definitely M.I.B a kpop band I hadn’t really heard of before, but after this I am most definitely going to check out. As I took lots of photos, I’ll give them their own separate post.
As this happened to coincide with the year anniversary of my time here in the city, I think it is the best way to celebrate it. I love how this city keeps surprising me, delivering me little gifts, and just making me lovely memories.
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