Migrant Workers' Festival

The Migrant Workers' Festival was held at the Olympic Park today. It was mostly interesting for me because I was surrounded by so many people from different countries. It almost felt like I was back in Vancouver.















This is in front of the Bangladesh and Phillipines booths.




















They had quite a cool kite flying. That's one long, long string.















Lunch: Curried chicken, rice, and tandoori chicken. It was tasty and always seems to taste better when sitting on the grass in a park.

The only thing that I didn't like about the festival was the 45 minutes at the main stage taken by a team of Koreans teaching everyone the Summit Dance (Kkokjijeon) to the beat of "Oh, Pilseung(victory) Korea" (Which I hear almost daily on TV and on the subway platform first thing in the morning). I'm REALLY curious to see how the world reacts to the Summit Dance when it is performed during the World Cup. While I'd like to support my host country in the World Cup, I'm secretly hoping that they'll get spanked and sent home in the first round so that I won't have to see the Summit Dance again.

I'm always kind of embarrassed by mass behavior. I would find it excruciatingly painful to do the dance in a huge crowd (Well, except for the Macarena and a very brief attempt to mimic John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever). I don't really understand the need to do things together like this. I'm sure that Koreans find my behavior very antisocial at times. I remember going river rafting a couple of years ago and we had to do the "Fighting" thing all the way down the river. Now, I paddled as well as everyone else (perhaps even better), but I'm sure that they felt my shouting was desultory and unispiring. I can't help it.

These are some notable quotes from the article by the Office of Investment Ombudsman about the dance (emphasis mine):

• The public reaction to the group dance was truly explosive...
• According to Kim, when he and his friends started dancing on the street for fun one day, quite a few strangers joined in the dance, proving the popularity of the dance.
• In less than two months, the dance featuring a series of simple, repetitive yet fun movements has become a “must event” for virtually all types of people.
• “Cool, it’s gonna be fun to perform the dance to cheer during the World Cup!” was the most dominant response to the dance...

Like the atomic bomb, this is one of those things that I wish we could uninvent.