test

Wierd.  I just tested and here you go.  I think the site hates my photos because it's letting me upload a 17th c. painting but rejects the photos of my cute kids.  Biased, and snobby, indeed.  This, by the way, is a painting of a woman playing the geomeungo (or at least holding it in her lap showing it to the child and the other young woman/child).  It's a buggar to play.

Troubles

I am having trouble uploading pictures.  This is frustrating because, while there is so much I want to share, I'm not able to because the blogsite is not working correctly and keeps telling me that the server is 'rejecting the image'--huh?  I can't figure it out and, because I am a very visual person, I need those images, which means it may be a few days before I can post something.  : - (  Stay tuned for...Chuseok Holiday travels...Ronan loses a tooth (and then loses the tooth; grrrr)...and Dahin gets glasses.  Hopefully, I'll be up and running soon.

Chuseok 2010!

The harvest festival, which occurs around the same time as the autumnal equinox, known as Chusok in Korea is today.  Two days, Wednesday and Thursday, this week are recognized as official holidays, but we really have the entire week off.  I cancelled my Monday afternoon class, which is the norm the Monday before a holiday, and my university is officially closed Tuesday through Thursday this week.  The boys had optional school Monday and Friday is also optional, and Dahin's only school day this week was Monday.  We're headed to Jack's mom's house today to eat and just visit with each other.  I'm going to spend some time knitting and working on those fall/Christmas projects for once. 

Below, Dahin and her friends dressed up in their hanbok and played the other day.  They were so cute that I snapped some photos.  My students gave us a huge box of hangwa, traditional Korean snacks, and the girls shared those as they played outside. Other good foods this time of year include pears and chestnuts.  Our college Dean sent us a box of chestnuts which we shared with Jack's mom.  She boiled and salted them for us and they are a YUMMY snack.    People also eat beef soup, bulgogi (marinated beef), and bindaeddeok (mung bean pancake), as well as seongpyeon (rice cakes stuffed with brown sugar, sesame oil, etc. and steamed with pine needles) during this annual fall holiday.  We are also supposed to visit the graves of relatives and pray, sing, eat, etc., but the heavy rains this week have kept us from visiting Jack's family plot in the countryside of Gyeonggi province.  Once the rain lets up, we plan to visit sometime this week.

The boys dressed up in their hanbok and staged a sword fight.  I love how they  posed, reflecting both their personalities.  I call Oliver "the dandy" and Ronan "the rogue" or prankster.  So funny.

The Wedding Singer

One of Jack's friends, who happens to be a shaman and whose mother is a very famous shaman, got married and he and his bride-to-be asked me to sing the congratulatory song at their wedding. Sometimes, the bride or groom will sing the song to each other, and sometimes someone else will sing it. 

This is my first experience in a wedding hall.  Everywhere, weddings are big business, but in Korea weddings are absolutely the ultimate in big business.  Instead of churches, many people get hitched in wedding halls, whole buildings designed to cater to your wedding needs. When you are a guest at a wedding, you have to pay.  If you are close to the couple, you pay a minimum of about $100 and if you are an acquaintance from work or elsewhere you pay anywhere from $30 to $50.  The amounts are typically in odd numbers (accept 100 or 200).   In this wedding hall, the actual place where the ceremony took place was on the top floor and the buffet, where we went to eat afterwards, was on a lower floor.  Jack's friend's wedding began as another wedding had ended.  Each ceremony lasts one hour or less and it's very wham-bam-thankyou-ma'am style.  You do the ceremony, take your photos, and then get the heck out.  Several attendants were there to make sure that everything went according to plan, and quickly. 

When they asked me to sing, I had envisioned standing with the accompanying performers and watching the couple dance or something.  But that was not to be the case. But...backing up:  I was told the musicians did not have the notation for the piece ("I Will"), soI had sent the score with proper key and a recording (I wanted to do "I Will" Alison Krauss style; not peppy, but sweet) weeks in advance, but  the bride did not tell me the musicians could not open the files.  When I called to check, the bride said the musicians told her they did actually have notation and files I sent would not open so I resent the files through email.  Still, the impression I got from the accompanists is that they did not really care and just wanted to get the song over with, so I was basically wasting my money and energy purchasing a score and editing it.  I had envisioned, as well, doing the song with guitar or 25-string gayageum, but the bride had said there is already a piano, violin, and cello trio so I would have to use them.  If I had had more foresight, I would have just asked a friend in Oakland to record the accompanying part on guitar and send it to me via email as an MP3 so that we could just play that while I sang.  But, hindsight is 20/20.  Instead, I got a pianist who, while willing to switch the key to fit my range, plodded ahead in the piece with little to no nuance and there was very little connecting us in the performance.   I tried to match her speed, as she slowed to match mine, so the overall rhythm was totally off.  We only had one rehearsal, when I got to the wedding site before the wedding.  I will never do something like that again. Next time, if there is a next time, I'll either learn the guitar part myself or have a friend back home record it.  That way, I'll get the sound, and soul, I want.

Anyway, I did it.  And, going back to a point I made above: I had expected to sing in the background while focus was on the bride and groom--dancing, or doing something.  I soon, and unexpectedly, learned that the singer who does the congratulatory song faces the bride and groom while they stand in front of those gathered and  look at the singer while s/he sings.  Awkward.  That really made me very nervous, which affected my vocal quality (eck). The combination of the unexpected performance situtation and the pianist's soul-less accompaniment meant I was not at my best.  I admit that, if I had known how things would go, I would have planned better and would have been able to do much, much better.   Also, it might have been good to have practiced without singing along to the Alison Krauss version, since I had that so strongly in mind it was difficult to switch to a more literal interpretation of the notation. Still, people liked it and I did it, and that's important.  Overall, it wasn't bad, but could have been better.  I just love this song, and I love the way Alison Krauss sings it.  It would have been great to have done it justice.

Practicing for the Next Show

Dahin and I are preparing for another taping of the same show, except this time we are not competing.  The winners from July, August, and September are all appearing.  We have had to prepare another song and it's still a bit rough around the edges.  Once we can get together better on the verse and stop Dahin from bobbing her head like a heavy metal babe and stop me from rigidly swaying, we'll be alright.  One last rehearsal with our 'over-see-er" Mina tomorrow and we'll be set to go.  Then, it's relaxation time since next week is a full week of holiday.   Chuseok (harvest festival) occurs midweek, so many people are taking the week off, like me, to take full advantage of the we-hate-sandwich days phenom (no way am I making my students come in on Monday and Friday).  Dahin also gets a week off from Annie rehearsals.  For the musical, she was assigned a minor role, but she is having so much fun doing it and learning so much it does not matter in the least.  I'm excited about where her participation in the musical will take her next.

The Winning Moment

The show aired today.  In anticipation, the  management where we live announced the broadcast in our community newsletter, and Dahin got a round of applause at the community meeting. Her teacher recorded it today and will broadcast it in school on Monday.  Dahin is very proud, and she should be!



I have not purchased a dvd of our appearance, but once available I will.  Instead, I shot parts of the broadcast on tv when it aired this afternoon.  I didn't think to do this during our actual performance, but had enough presence of mind to at least shoot the awards ceremony.  Dahin was really blown away, as you can probably tell. 

First Place!

Well, we did it!  Not only did we practice daily and worry constantly about whether or not we could actually do it, we won first prize.  I was a bit shocked and Dahin was so surprised she cried.  When they called us for first prize, she just started crying while holding the sign that indicated we were the grand winners for the day and could not answer the questions the hosts were asking.  One of the hosts asked me, "Is this the first time Dahin has won something like this?"  I said yes it was.  We're really grateful to the graduate students in my department who helped us get ready by brainstorming, working with us on the song (Mina met us every day despite a very busy work schedule) and lending me a hanbok.

The day started at 2 pm with an orchestra rehearsal.  It took us a couple of tries to match what we had practiced with the musicians but eventually we figured out a good arrangement.

Next up was the dress rehearsal on camera.  We did ok, better than the first rehearsal, but things were still a little shaky.  Dahin was originally supposed to sing the first verse by herself, but she was so nervous we sang the whole song together.  For the dress rehearsal, I was really trying to get her to sing louder.  We had also planned some choreography to go with the song, but that fell through as well because Dahin really needed to hold my hand in order to do it.  I was happy to oblige.

We nervously waited behind one of the choruses for our turn on camera.

Then, it was our turn and it went so well.  I was incredibly relieved considering the two really shaky turns we had at rehearsal.  Dahin hit her harmonies dead on and she even looked as if she were having fun. Once we were done, we stood on stage with other competitors and the judges commented on our performance.  They said the best thing about it was the energy and our performance presence, as well as the fact that we pulled off a song that was not easy to sing.  The thing to work on was making the traditional childen's songs sound more authentically folk-songish (a bit hard to do when accompanied by an orchestra) but I think the same--it would be great to be able to sing well in folk song style and I know we don't quite have that down yet, but we did learn a lot preparing this song.

I have to mention that there are essentially two types of children's songs in Korea: dongyo and cheolle dongyo (kugak dongyo--traditional children's songs).  Dongnyo are basically songs in a Western classical scale that employ elements such as functional harmony.  The songs are normally belted out without much vibrato and, honestly, the style of singing always makes the kids' voices sound a bit flat and the songs all sound alike to me. I'm not a fan of your typical Korean dongyo.  The traditional children's songs are basically folk songs that are either sung by kids or have themes that are relevant to kids and  are considered to be folk songs.  These songs are typically shorter than your average folk song and involve less vocal tricks, but performance of these songs requires the use of folk song vocal techniques such as wide vibration, an energy that matches the rhythmic cycle, and carefully placed ornamentations in order to really pull it off as a traditional dongnyo. The traditional dongyo are way more difficult to sing than the 'la-la-ing' of the typical contemporary children's song. Dahin and I were the only team that performed a traditional dongnyo.   We added one innovation: harmony on the chorus, but it was appropriate and a recording we heard of a children's choir singing the song included harmony on the chorus.  All other teams or solo performers sang the contemporary Western-style dongnyo.  In part, I believe this helped us win first prize.  We stood out from the other performers by our choice of repertoire.

 After everyone had competed and the judges commented on us in groups we stood on stage with all the competitors and sung a children's song together before they announced the prizes.  Honorable mention was a 5th grade girl Dahin knows at school who is, honestly, quite mean to Dahin on a regular basis.  She makes snide comments to Dahin about what Dahin can't do and  how perfect she thinks she is when they have mutlicultural classes together.  When they called the child for honorable mention, I thought 'crud, now at school Dahin will never hear the end of this.'  Second place was called and then, shocker, they called "'San Dokkaebi' Professor Hilary Finchum-Sung and student Dahin Sung!"  Yay us!!!!

The boys were so, so good.  I can't believe that they sat so patiently for over 5 hours during the rehearsals and filming.  Jack and I realized during one of the breaks, that we had all forgotten to eat lunch.  The cafe in the KBS studios just had cookies and pastries available, so Jack got the kids cookies and bought them juice.  Bad parents!  Well, I guess it happens some time or another. 

Dahin with her school mate and competitor.

Once the event was all over and we made sure the violin we won would be delivered to our home, we headed to Dahin's choice for dinner: Outback Steakhouse. The kids chowed down on ribs and Jack and I had steak and salad.  The best thing about this, beyond spending more time together as mother and daughter, was seeing Dahin so happy and full of confidence.  She did so well.  We've been called back for another show since we won first prize. Filming is this Sunday, so Dahin and I are yet again busy preparing a song for performance.  This show is not a competition, but features the winners from June, July, August, and September shows.  It will be aired in October. 

Another postscript:  This event has opened some doors for little Miss Superstar.  Dahin is now participating in a production of "Annie" at the Sejong Cultural Center in downtown Seoul.   The vocal coaches and dance teachers work with the kids everyday for three hours.  It is an intense schedule and means that I have to pick the boys up from school in the pm since Jack has to be with Dahin at rehearsals and they don't get home until 10 pm every night, which means an 11 pm bedtime after homework for Dahin.  I was afraid it might be too intense for her, but she absolutely LOVES it. I think she has found her niche.

Typhoon Hits Home

Last night was a pretty scary night for all of us.  When I returned home last night around midnight after a performance reception, the rain was falling pretty hard.  About 2 am, Oliver ran into the room and said he was scared.  By that time, the wind had really picked up outside and was literally thrashing our curtains and window shades about.  Window were rattling, doors were slamming inside due to the suction caused by the intense wind, and the wind was howling full force.  After Dahin's door opened and shut several times due to the force of the wind (stacked books or a toy bin could not keep the door in place), she ran into our room and climbed into bed.  I did not want to shut the outside windows and slide doors completely because I was, perhaps irrationally, worried about our home imploding. I know about tornados and air pressure, but nothing about typhoons.  So, I did what I would have done in the case of a tornado (except did not force the family into the bathtub). I shut the doors a little, and enough to allow for some air flow, but what an air flow.   Then Ronan and Oliver's door slammed shut.  I didn't hear Ronan wake up so assumed he was ok, but discovered that the wind had, somehow, locked the door.  Ronan had initally tried to open the door, but then ran back into bed and threw the covers over his head because he was convinced there was a ghost in his room.  Around daybreak, he worked the door open and crawled into bed with us.  That made five of us in our queen-sized bed.  Needless to say, with all the howling, slamming doors, rattling window, sirens, electonics turning off and on, I did not sleep much.  We woke up this morning to find we had no electricity, so made the best of it and served the kids yogurt and fruit for breakfast and made coffee on the gas stove (thank goodness we cook with gas).  

I've pasted a couple of articles below about the storm, the biggest to hit the Seoul area in fifteen years.  The photo at the bottom is not one I took (raining too hard to brave going out and taking a picture), but it resembled the scene in our neighborhood this morning.  Trees along the road had literally been snapped in two and I had to step over branches and past downed trees on the way to my office. College was stil in session on time, as was the boys' preschool, but Dahin's school was delayed by two hours.  Thank goodness no one was hurt from the flying debris.

Now, the weather is so wierd.  The sun is out at the moment (almost 2 pm), but the sky is stormy dark.  Thinking it may rain again before long since, as I understand it, the typhoon has not completely cleared the area.

ARTICLES:

Typhoon Kompasu Lashes Seoul; Flights Canceled, Schools Closed

September 01, 2010, 9:10 PM EDT
Stuart Biggs

Sept. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Typhoon Kompasu reached islands off the west coast of the Korean peninsula, bringing strong winds and heavy rain that knocked out power in parts of Seoul, forced the cancellation of flights and delayed the opening of schools.

The center of Kompasu was 58 kilometers (36 miles) northwest of Seoul at 6:35 a.m. local time, the Korea Meteorological Administration said on its website. Kompasu’s winds slowed as the storm reached land and they were blowing at 97 kilometers per hour, down from 176 kph overnight.

Kompasu may dump as much as 150 millimeters (6 inches) of rain in some parts of the Korean peninsula today, the administration said.

As many as 128 flights, including five international services, were canceled in South Korea as of 6 a.m. because of the storm, the Ministry of Public Administration and Security said in a statement on its website. Incheon Port Authority said work at the port has stopped because vessels are docked to avoid Kompasu.

The government has more than 14,000 emergency workers monitoring the impact of the storm, the statement said. Debris littered the streets as strong winds and heavy rain lashed the South Korean capital.

Electric power distribution systems in Seoul and surrounding provinces were damaged, according to Korea Electric Power Corp. More than 725,800 houses were without power as of 7 a.m. today, the power distributor said in a statement.

School hours for elementary and middle schools in Seoul, Incheon and nearby areas have been delayed by 2 hours today, according to the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.

Kompasu is expected to pass across the peninsula and move over open water to the east, the Korea Meteorological Administration said. Warnings were issued for strong winds and high waves, the administration said.


KOREA TIMES:
Typhoon Batters Seoul, West Coast Areas

Typhoon Kompasu struck central South Korea early Thursday morning, bringing downpours and gusts that paralyzed metro operations in Seoul and adjacent areas.With almost all above-ground sections of Seoul's subway lines out of service, street trees toppled and winds blowing at a speed of over 20 meters per second, commuters and students were forced to undergo the worst transportation chaos in decades.The typhoon caused power outages along the west coast and forced airlines to cancel or divert domestic and international flights.Kompasu is the strongest tropical storm to hit Seoul in 15 years.The seventh typhoon of the year reached Ganghwa Island on the west coast at a speed of 45 kilometers per hour as of 6:35 a.m., according to the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA).The KMA issued typhoon warnings for Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and South Chungcheong Province, forecasting the tropical storm is expected to move to the East Sea Thursday afternoon.