korean traditional harvest celebration

one of our korean friends that we met at a coffee shop, (that she owns), invited us to the university she graduated from for a harvest celebration with a bunch of her friends and her boyfriend.  this celebration is traditionally performed by the "humble", or not so wealthy, koreans that live outside of the city.  it is a performance to bring good fortune to the fall harvest.

there were about 70 performers, each with a different traditional korean percussion instrument.  they formed a line and walked, danced and marched around a fire harmonizing their instruments for about 3 hours.  in their performance they had battles where four people would go head-to-head and try to out-do each other with their playing and dancing.  at one point in the night everyone formed a circle and the best player from each instrument did a solo performance in the center of the circle.

 later in the evening they taught ryan and i how to play some of the instruments.  it's not as simple as it looks because there are certain ways and specific spots where you have to hit it.

this is me trying to learn.

this is me once i figured it out and could play on-beat.

some of the performers wore these hats with long ribbon attached to them and they would play their instrument and twirl the ribbon all over the place.

this is ryan doing his best.

when the fire died down every formed a circle and had a dance party.  ryan and i were challenged to a dance-off.  i must say, we held our own.

after the music, everyone went inside and feasted on some meat and rice and we played games.  all the games that we learned that night involved the loser being slapped on the arm.

this video is of one of the games they taught us.  everyone stands in a circle and chants in a certain order.  if you mess up the chant then everyone gets to slap you on the arm.