On Thursday (May 14), our campus held a festival for all foreign students. There was no lesson that morning. We were only required to attend the festival which started at 11am and ended at 5pm. The festival comprised a cooking and talent competition. Lucky draw was also thrown in with the top prize being electronic dictionary. Other prizes include MP3 player, USB Drive and Outback Steakhouse voucher.
But before the crowd arrived, a group of foreign students were already cooking up a storm at their make-shift kitchen beside the IIE building. Of all the food being prepared, I am only familiar with the chicken satay, Indian curry and dumpling. The rest of the dishes were kinda 'foreign' and exotic to me.
Chicken satay being prepared by Indonesian students. Smell really good.
Without looking at others, I picked this dish as the winning dish cos' I like satay. Satay definitely tastes much better than 닭꼬치 because of the spices used to marinate the meat.
A dish cooked by Japanese students using assorted vegetables and chicken meat. The dish, which originated from Kyushu, is called '치쿠잰니'. It is a healthy dish and quite unlike mainstream Japanese dishes. Usually healthy food tends to be less tasty and I honestly didn't expect them to win.
A curry dish (허루화) prepared by the combined team of Nepalese and Indian students. The dish is very fragrant because of the spices used. I wonder where they find all the spices in Seoul.
The festival was held at a small open-air amphitheatre (인간 교실, Human Classroom) in front of the College of Human Ecology. By 11am, the place was already packed with people. While we were waiting for the cooked dishes to be brought out for the cooking competition, a man in traditional clothing was pounding the rice dough near the stage. Students were later asked to join in the pounding. When the dough became 'ddeok', each class was asked to send a representative to collect their share.
'Ddeok' making in progress. The big mallet was used to pound the rice dough.
For the cooking competition, students were required to come dressed in their traditional costumes and for the food they cooked, they were required to give a brief introduction.
The Mongolian Team
The Saudi Arabian Team
The Chinese Team. Fortunately, there was a Chinese team or it would be quite embarrassing since Chinese students form the majority of the foreign students population.
The Kyrgyzstani Team. I always has problem spelling the name.
To the left of Saudi Arabian team is the Belize team from Central America and to the right is the Azerbaijani Team.
The Russian team is in the centre with the Taiwanese Team to the left
Mongolian and Vietnamese Team standing side by side.
The competition started with the Korean team giving an introduction of their dishes. Those guys in blue shirts are bound for Peking University and those guys in pink are bound for Japan. As explained by the guy in blue, the reason for their 'existence' is a political one.
The Kyrgyzstani Team introducing their dishes - 듬다마 and 오러모.
The French Team introducing their dishes - Fricassĕe de Poulet. It is a family dish commonly eaten in Southern France. Its main ingredients are chicken meat, tomato, tomato sauce and onion.
The Chinese Team introducing their dishes - 'double-skin' milk and dumpling which won them the 3rd prize. 'Double-skin' milk is a dessert made by steaming a mixture of milk and egg. Sound very simple. Perhaps I will try it one day.
The person doing the introduction is a Nepalese student. There was a lot of food prepared by his team. He does not only cook, he can play the flute as well.
The Azerbaijani students introducing their traditional dishes of which one is Kebab. They won the 3rd prize.
The Saudi Arabian claimed that you will not forget the taste after you tasted their '캅싸'. 잊을 수 없는 그 맛, 캅싸!. I guess its true because they won the 2nd prize. The dish's main ingredients comprise rice, mutton, onions, garlic and seasonings.
The Vietnamese team introducing '반세오' and its recipe. Our teacher was all praise for the dish. This team won the 2nd prize together with the Saudi Arabian team.
The Mongolian team introducing '호쇼르' which looks like curry puff. The filling is meat instead of curry potato. This team won the 3rd prize.
The competition ended after the Russian and Taiwanese both presented their dishes. The next event is lunch.
Teachers and students queuing up to have a taste of all the dishes. However, only teachers are allowed to vote, or else the Chinese team will definitely come up top for obvious reason.
We were each given a 'dosirak' (lunch box) for our lunch. But that's not all, we also get to eat the food prepared by the students. Of course, the satay belongs to me.
Our class rep collected two plates full of food and our teacher gave us another plate. So we had 3 plates of food to share plus our dosirak. By the way, I also ate the Mongolian 'curry puff'. Quite nice.
After lunch, the '장기자랑' or talent competition commenced. The participants of this competition are mostly Korean, Chinese and Japanese. Though there was an apparent lack of international flavour, it was still quite entertaining. The first team to take the stage was a rock band formed by those Korean students who are bound for Japan's '일본공대'.
A guitarist of the rock band formed by Korean students bound for Japan's '일본공대'.
The rest of the guitarists.
Guitarist turns lead vocalist.
Belly dancer from Ubezkistan. She first arrived at KHU last Spring.
This is the 2nd time she is performing in the same event.
Traditional Chinese dance by a Chinese student from the Jiangsu province.
One of the Chinese students from a trio singing '거위의 꿈'.
The only guy in the trio. I don't know why he has this painful facial expression whilst singing the song. Isn't the song full of dream and hope. Cheer up guy.
You saw this Nepalese student cooking curry just now. He is now playing tunes from the Himalayas with his flute. To better his chance of winning, he even played the title track from the movie 'Titanic'.
This Japanese team comprises of two guitarists and one female vocalist.
This female vocalist sang the same song in both Japanese and Korean.
Keniji, the guitarist, used to be my classmate. A playful but yet a very honest person. I think he looks like Jay Chou but my friend disagrees.
She didn't have the flower just now. Some 'admirer' went on stage and gave her one.
Next come the hip-hop team from China. She has the style.
The complete Chinese hip-hop's group.
Another Chinese student singing and dancing to the tune of 'You Go Girl'.
An all-Japanese girls dancing group.
Gee gee gee gee, baby, baby...
The MC, a Korean language teacher, interviewing the group. He is quite hilarious. He can also dance reasonably well.
Representative from Thailand singing Davichi '8282'.
This guy is an ET (English Teacher) at IIE. He comes from New York and plays the keyboard almost like a pro. He probably can earn a living playing the keyboard.
An English Professor at IIE from Canada playing the guitar and singing.
This guy is a Korean. He formed the group 'Samurai' with 3 other students from US, China and Japan and their presentation item is breakdance. They are the most internationalised group in the competition.
The last group to perform. They are Korean students who are bound for Peking University. These are the 'lollipop' girls.
The 'lollipop' boys and girls. I thought they are good enough to be the first. But I guess it may not be nice to award them the 1st prize since they have home ground advantage. In the end, they got the 2nd prize for the talent competition.
Samulnori performers performed while we wait for the arrival of 원장님.
The talent competition ended too early so it was up to the Samulnori performers to drag the time until 원장님 arrives.
The first prize for the cooking competition goes to the Indonesian Team.
The first prize for the talent competition goes to the b-boys team. This Korean guy is the best dancer in the team.
It was a fulfilling day since we were both well fed and entertained. More campus activities coming up after this.
Am I feeling the heat? My answer is a positive 'yes' and I mean it in a literal way. The current temperature is 30.5degC and it feels like midsummer outside.
I am too used to the thought that only hot food is delicious and so naturally cold noodle is not something which I think is delicious. When it comes to selecting food to eat, cold noodle has never been one of my consideration. I know I am carrying a biased thought. How can I have concluded that cold noodle is not delicious without first even trying it? So in the end, I still decided to give it a try.
