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[HanCinema's Travel] "Mapo Ferry Shrimp Festival 2015"

While larger festivals tend to get most of the press, in most parts of Korea, it's easy enough to find local seasonal festivals that are a tad difficult to explain. The Mapo Ferry Shrimp Festival, for example, does not exactly have a very resonant English name. It's localized to the Mapo region of Seoul where (I presume) there is a thriving market in small shrimplike creatures. They aren't actually shrimp, I don't think- I've mainly just seen these used as optional seasoning for Korean stew. And as for the ferry, well, I don't have any idea what that has to do anything. All I can confirm is that there were in fact ferries at the event.

...But really, it doesn't actually matter what the specific impetus for the festival is, because local Korean festivals along these lines exist for the same reason that any other country's local festival exists. It's an excuse to set up elaborate temporary outdoor markets and offer numerous photo opportunities for tourists. Besides, October is among the last month that the weather is appropriate for an event like this, and people need the excuse to get out of the house.

Now, let's discuss those photo opportunities for a moment. We're all familiar enough with traditional Joseon clothes because of their prominent appearance in historical dramas. But even in Korea it's fairly unheard of to see this kind of clothing in a casual daily context. Even bearing in mind that (most) costume wearers are in fact working for the festival, events like this give people a rare chance to see people wearing hanboks like they were actual normal clothes.

The booths, too, tend to be very basically informative. They're set up like actual shops, although you can't actually buy anything. You're just observing people sitting around not doing much of anything while all their stuff is set up, as if it could be bought. For what it's worth that is in fact more-or-less how a real a specialty shop works- and besides, if it's a crowded market atmosphere you want, you could just go to the other side of the festival and try to buy some food. Those men and women are the real successors of the traditional Korean market tradition.

On a basic level festivals like this just showcase old stuff in a way that reminds us that yes, there was once a time when the ancestors actually lived like this, and tasks like ferry construction were so important that it was worthwhile to dedicate festivals to the project. All right, that's just me guessing again, but really, if it's this tough for me to figure out what's going on, you can see why this kind of cultural insight would appeal to Koreans. Living in the modern era they don't have much better exposure than I do- just through museums and dramas and the like.

It feels embarassingly cosmopolitan for me to admit this, but even having had grandparents who raised cattle, it's always kind of surreal actually seeing a harnessed animal in action. Or just to see these kinds of tools in proper use. Even granting that this is all a show for the tourists, it's not like we can see this stuff in the native environment anymore. People still do this stuff in the country, of course, but they'll probably get mad if you try to photograph them.

Overall these events are more experiences than anything else. The Mapo Ferry Shrimp Festival took place at the World Cup Park on the weekend from October 16th-18th- it's an area that tends to be abuzz this year in any case, because it's also the best time to visit the Sky Garden Park that's nearby. Really, any big park in South Korea has a simialrly big event going on there sooner or later- it's well worth your time on a trip to just check out one of these areas at random, or look for flyers. They're good quality events but just weird enough that they don't expect much foreigner traffic.

Oh, and this friendly monk was at a street corner outside the festival asking for alms. If you see him make an offering. It was awfully nice of the guy to pose for this picture. But that's just another regular fixture. If you're asking for offerings, and always dress like it's 1499, what better place to go than the Mapo Ferry Shrimp Festival?

- Article by William Schwartz

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