Story: Hahoe Folk Village

One summer day, my friend Rob and I took a bus from the city of Daegu, South Korea (where we were living at the time) and headed for the city of Andong, which was located about an hour and a half away. It was a gorgeous day: the sky was bright blue, accentuated with little puffy clouds here and there. And unlike in Daegu, the skies above Andong were clear, not filled with the haze of pollution.

We made our way to the Andong Train Station, where we knew a tourist information booth was located. We wanted to visit the nearby Hahoe Folk Village (pronounced hah-hway), but didn’t know how to get there. The tourist information people were quite on the ball. We were given a map of Andong (in both English and Korean) and a bus time table (also in both languages). We learned that we needed to take bus 46, which would be leaving from the bus stop opposite the train station and to the left at 2:05. That gave us nearly an hour to go forage for some food.

We entered a local restaurant, which offered traditional Korean food. I ordered one of my favorites, but the owners of the restaurant were quite insistent that I try their specialty instead. Their specialty was some kind of soup. It was quite delicious, except for one scary, unidentifiable object floating in it. Sadly, I did not take any photographs of this mysterious object, so let me describe it for you: it was a dark maroon color, and was very porous, like a sponge. However, while it was a little squishy, it was nowhere near as soft as one would expect of something so porous. I took a very small nibble of it and decided that it was something I very much did NOT want to eat. The rest of the soup, however, was delicious. (I later learned from my Korean friends that this was congealed blood, and that what I’d eaten was a traditional congealed blood soup. Yummy.)

After lunch we made our way to the bus stop, and boarded bus 46 for the Hahoe Folk Village, designed to exhibit traditional Joseon-era (1392-1910) culture, life and architecture. We arrived at Hahoe shortly before 3:00, and were told that a mask dance show was getting ready to begin. This was excellent timing! I certainly didn’t understand all of what happened during the show, but based on the visuals, I can give you a run down:

A group of traditional Korean musicians came out first, and arrayed themselves on the stage. Then a masked woman was carried around the stage on the shoulders of a man. Next came another masked man, who began dancing, speaking and singing. Then an anatomically correct bull appeared on the stage. The bull first made its way around the audience. In addition to being anatomically correct, it had been rigged with a water bottle, so that it could lift its leg (like a dog, not so much like a bull) and “urinate” on the crowd. Being that it was so unbearably hot, even in the shade, this was actually quite pleasant. The masked man and the bull faced off… then the man conked the bull on the head three times with a hammer, killed it, and proceeded to disembowel it, then run about waving its testicles.

After the bull testicles were carried off into the wings came a scantily clad "old woman" (she was portrayed by a fairly young man), followed by a demure maiden... and a creepy old man intent on wooing her Lastly came a drunken old man character, who was definitely the comic relief in the post-bull-castration part of the show. The drunken old man first pulled a Korean woman out of the crowd. Then, while talking to her he said “waygookan” (foreigner) and pointed in our direction. At this point, Rob and I simultaneously said Uh-oh! as we were the only foreigners in the crowd. Luckily, they came for him instead of me, and he got to try his hand at the mask dance, much to the amusement of the entire crowd, myself included.

The bizarre mask dance show came to an end soon thereafter, and we made our way out into the Hahoe Folk Village itself. I must admit, I had expected it to be a model village, not an actual one in which people live traditionally – which is what turned out to be the case. (Granted, the “traditional” way of life in Hahoe was augmented by TV antennas, SUVs and other modern trappings, although these were, for the most part cleverly disguised and hidden from general view.) The village was beautiful, and full of all sorts of thatched roofed domiciles and a plethora of minbaks (cheap Korean hotels in which one sleeps on the floor) for those wishing to stay the night. We wandered about, enjoying the scenery, shopping for trinkets and taking numerous photographs. Several of the thatched-roof buildings contained demonstrations of traditional Joseon-era Korean life, including how to play traditional Korean instruments and how to properly drink tea in a formal setting.

After thoroughly exploring the village, we wandered down to the Hwachon Stream, a tributary of the nearby Nakdong River. There we discovered that for a nominal fee we could be poled across the river in a traditional boat “driven” by a local. The view of the Hahoe Folk Village from across the river was well worth the pittance we paid to be ferried across. There was a path leading from the bank up a steep cliff, and we were told that there was an interesting temple atop said cliff. Unfortunately, it was nearing the end of the day, and we knew that the last bus back to Andong would be leaving shortly. We climbed back into the boat and were poled back across the river, and made our way back to the bus, fully satisfied with our day.