Baegiljang

This is old news, but I wanted to put some of these pictures up. Back on October 10, the day before Hangeullal, Yonsei University held their annual 백일장 baegiljang, or essay-writing contest. The contest is open to foreigners studying in Korea. Each two topics are announced as the contest begins, one for essays and one for poems. Contestants choose either to write an essay or poem, and have about two hours to write.

Neither Erma nor I are at a high enough level of ability to effectively compete, but KLI required that we attend. In fact, the contest seemed to be largely organized and run by the KLI teachers.

The contest was held at Yonsei University's open-air amphitheater (노천극장 nocheon geukjang).


Here are the assembled students waiting for the contest to begin.


The writing topics were dramatically revealed as the two scrolls seen below were unfurled. The poetry topic is 별 byeol 'star' and the essay topic is 여행 yeohaeng 'travel'.


Erma is hard at work on her essay.


After the contest ended Lance posed in front of the message board.


We were supplied with a rather bizarre free lunch: a box of milk or soymilk and two muffins.


One muffin had chocolate chips in it, and the other was neon orange in color.


While we waited for the judges to read the compositions, we were entertained by traditional Korean music troupes.

This is a 사물놀이 samul nori troupe, basically a drum quartet.



This young woman did a very impressive solo drum performance.


One traditional Korean folk dance is done with a long ribbon attached to the top of the head. By making small circular motions, the dancer can set the ribbon swirling in different patterns. It may look easy, but I suspect it's quite difficult to do well. Also, the ribbon is so long that it's a challenge just to avoid getting it caught up around your legs.


This guy did some modern-looking break-dancing-cum-jump-rope type moves with his ribbon.



There was also a brief 판소리 pansori performance. This woman sang really beautifully. The pansori voice is ragged and cracked, full of emotion. (Some of you may have seen the movie Chunhyang, which is framed by a pansori performance.)


In a lot of these pictures you may have noticed the hangeul written vertically on the sides of the big blue banner. This is 15th-century hangeul as it appeared when the new writing system was first promulgated. There are a number of letter and syllable forms that are now no longer used.*

After the performances there were some contests and games involving the students. This is a competition among representatives from the different Korean language schools. One of Korea's traditional games, 제기차기 jegichagi, is essentially a form of hacky-sack.


The last picture is a shot I took on our way out from the top of the theater steps. There's a view, but it is not very inspiring.


The winner of the contest wrote a short poem. He made a brief thank-you speech, in very good Korean, in which he said he had been studying the language for only 6 months. He appeared to be from somewhere in Southeast Asia.

*The text is from 훈민정음 Hunminjeong-eum Correct Sounds for Instructing the People, promulgated by King Sejong in 1443. One of the letters that is no longer in use is seen at the top of the syllable in the lower right corner of the banner. The letter is ㆆ, a glottal stop [ʔ]. You can also small dots to the left of some of the syllables. These are tone marks. King Sejong, by the way, is on the 10,000-won bill (worth about US $10).