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It's a Public Gathering, y'all! The city of Sanbon was celebrating something this week, probably 5 years of unprecedented growth in the neon sign industry, and a couple of the Korean teachers invited us along. There would be fireworks, they said: fireworks and live music. Cindy was excited because she was convinced that some big Korean pop star had been recruited to come out and play this 'prestigeous' event. If you need some kind of Canadian equivalency here, picture a free concert in Waterloo Park to raise money for a nature walk footpath. I somehow doubted that the red carpet royalty crowd would be rolling into town for this one, but it sounded rad regardless.

Me and Belinda were absolutely the only whiteys there, in a crowd of about 5000 or so, and many small children stared at us fearfully. I gnashed my teeth at some of them, and did the Robot Dance for others. My criteria for Fear versus Fun was unknown even to me.

The music only caught my attention for a few minutes. Most acts were carefully choreographed pop-a-thons, with sexy sexy dancers and a bare minimum of Rocking Out. Some songs were in English. They were not songs that I would've chosen though. I would've chosen Bohemian Rhapsody. The populace seemed to approve though, clapping their hands and spinning glowsticks slowly in the crisp autumn air.

At one point a small boy was dragged up out of the crowd and mercilessly berated by the evening's host. At least that's what it sounded like to me. Yelling and berating. Cindy and Elissa translated for me every once in a while, but I didn't understand any of the jokes. Apparently the child got the better of his accuser, drawing big laughs, and I idly wondered whether he had finally got around to calling the host a fat motherfucker. And then he began to dance and, let's face it, everybody loves a dancing and/or wildly gyrating kid. The crowd loved it; they chowed down his ridiculous shimmying and screamed for more. It must be noted that this kid was on for nearly twice as long as any of the bands thus far. That's gotta feel pretty shitty: you're Dancer #3 in one of Sanbon's finest up-and-coming pop acts, and a little kid steals half your stage time.

Cindy taught me the Korean word for fireworks and I bellowed it repeatedly as the stage was taken by pop stars and more pop stars and then a washed up pop star who used to be nationally popular but now she's not. The Dancing Boy made a glorious return and was awarded a vaccuum cleaner for his antics. The host sang a fucking song. I felt like I was watching the biggest Karaoke stage in the world. I have seen enough Karaoke in one short month to last me a lifetime.

Finally, heads turned upwards and the sky roared and bloomed into bursts of blinding colour. I took a few pictures because my camera has a Fireworks Mode which is, as far as I know, only good for taking photos of fireworks. And then all around me I noticed Koreans aiming their cell phones at the blazing heavens, taking pictures, bowing their heads to examine the results and Repeating. Trying desperately to own the moment. Trying to turn a captivating display of movement and light into a series of still-shot instances. Missing the show because they were so busy trying to capture it and put it in a box. I put my camera away.

The entire fireworks display was short, maybe five minutes, and I left convinced that most attendees hadn't really seen it. Sure, they had photographic evidence, proof that they had been there (done that), but in their eagerness to document the fleeting cascades of light they had missed everything. This is not necessarily a Korean phenomenon: this is a worldwide epidemic.

This is where we're going, where we are.

Posted by Chris at 12:25 AM >> Commentations (2)