A Short History of Andong

This weekend the usual suspects and I will travel to Andong, a small, ancient mountain city, also known as "The Capital of Korean Spiritual Culture," about four hours north, to witness the annual Andong Hahoe International Mask Dance Festival. (It's festival season) It's exactly like what it sounds: people wearing creepy elaborately painted masks, ala "Eyes Wide Shut," acting out simple plays and dancing to traditional Korean music, which, if you've ever heard before.... can be a little jarring on the ears.
So.... why would I want to go there?

BACKSTORY:

The city, as proclaimed by Queen Elizabeth II, when she visited there in 1999, was called "the most Korean place in Korea."It's one of the only populated places left in Korea that hasn't been touched by skyscrapers, advertisements, and busy roads.

During the Korean war, pretty much everything in the country was destroyed. Andong is special because it's also one of the very few places left in Korea that still has what they call "Joseon period style architecture" (which basically means small huts made of natural materials, including thatch and bamboo, with stereotypically asian looking downward bowing rooftops). There is still a strong connection between people and land here, and the festival dances are meant to bless the rice harvest. Through the years dances have been done as a kind of political commentary, or to connect with spirits.

This might not sound special, but Korea has a very long history of being trampled on and destroyed (mostly by the Japanese). But when the country was rebuilt in after the war, they built everything in the new style. Pretty much overnight (by the mid 1970s), new metropolises sprang up and people rushed in from the country in record numbers. It was a near complete shift in society, from being 90% rural to about 80% urban. Soon, the newest generation born had never really known an agrarian society (including my co-teacher, whose parents moved to a newly built Jinju in 1971).

I guess it would be comparable to.... say, after the American Civil War, the country was completely destroyed, not just a few dozen battlefields, but completely, including every single city. Imagine if, within 15 years of that happening, the country had fully industrialized and had just one or two buildings left from the American Revolutionary period.

That's basically what happened in Korea, but they lost a lot more than 250 years of history. More like, 2,000 years. That's why it's so important to Korean people to preserve this tradition- because it is quite frankly the last part of Korea that's right out of a history book.


Well, all of that, and the food is good.
Pictures coming soon!