Gwangju News - Blossoms to Bottle Rockets: Jinhae’s Cherry Blossom Festival

This is the second of two pieces I wrote for the Gwangju News, a magazine for the international community in our city.  Since the pieces haven't been published on their website yet, I'm posting them here for everyone to read.  If you want to see the piece as it appears in the magazine (including pictures), let me know and I'll give you the .pdf.  Enjoy! 

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We arrived on a crowded city bus from Masan, rambling down a hill covered in fluffy white trees. The driver stopped at a wide traffic circle, and we were swept off with the rush of passengers onto the sidewalk.

My girlfriend and I had come to Jinhae to welcome spring, continuing a tradition begun as students in Washington, DC, where we would walk hand-in-hand in the shade of freshly-blossomed cherry trees, jostling with hundreds of other bumbling tourists for the same prized view of the Jefferson Memorial across the Tidal Basin framed by that one perfect blossom-covered branch. 

Though the Jefferson Memorial was some 7,000 miles away, we were determined to carry on our tradition as best we could – which meant jostling with hundreds of other tourists for the same prized view from the top of Jehwangsan at Jinhae's Cherry Blossom Festival.

Held annually in the smallish port city just outside of Busan, the festival commemorates the beginning of spring, and the life of Admiral Lee Sun-shin who defeated several Japanese invasion attempts in the area. Various cultural events are held throughout the two-weeks of the festival, though the main event is the streets and hills of Jinhae which explode in pink and white for only a couple of weeks.

The festival conjures up mental images of an idyllic walk along the picturesque Yeojwacheon stream, your companion's face dappled by the shadows of cherry blossoms as you munch on snacks purchased from a truck. Or maybe you dream of climbing Jehwangsan's 365 steps (one for each day of the year) to take in the sweeping view of the city from the top of Jinhae Tower, stopping to snap a few artistic shots of lovers feeding each other kimbap on a bench under a branch of white flowers. Don't feel like all those stairs? That's okay, there's a rail car that shuttles up the elderly, infirm, and out of shape, though you'll miss the fortune tellers and palm readers that ply the shady steps to the top.

As we wandered through the streets, shaded by the ubiquitous cherry trees, we soon became distracted by the carnival-like atmosphere going on around us. There was food everywhere. Men spun cotton candy like Rumpelstiltskin and ajummas flipped pa-jeon loaded with peppers, scallions and squid as giant cauldrons of soup bubbled next to them. Men pulled fish and shrimp, octopus and squid, sea cucumbers and those weird red pinecones from boxy blue tanks and served them under a tent with a bowl of maekgoli. Entire sides of pigs roasted over open charcoal next to a tent that may or may not have served whale and roasted baby chicks (I didn't ask).

But not everything resembled an exotic foods show on cable, on every street corner stood a cart peddling familiar snacks. Dried cuttlefish hung from hooks, awaiting the jaws of a shredder. Vats of bundigie (silk worm larvae) bubbled infernally next to roasting corn, and skewers of mysterious meat rotated delectably over electric burners.

We washed down our lunch with a couple of beers in the center of Jungwon Rotary, watching the people enjoy the afternoon. Young lovers took photos of themselves, oblivious to the teenagers playing soccer with an empty coconut next to them. Children frolicked, playing with balloons, bubbles, and their newest carny prizes while making faces at the foreigners.

Our beers finished, we ventured into the tent-city once more, hoping to win one of those helicopters the kids were playing with at one of the carny games. The weighted cans seemed to magically repel the baseballs we threw at them, the basketball hoop seemed too small for the ball, the BB gun didn't shoot straight, and the eel we dropped into the water swam into the wrong divider.

At night, we settled back on the lawn in the rotary to watch the final night of the festival. The smell of roman candles mingled with the traffic cop's whistles and the whinnying from the speakers of the horse-drawn carriages. A small child, barely old enough to venture out of his stroller, waved around a roman candle that had only seconds earlier been launching sparkling white bursts into the sky. We ducked. An ajossi glared at us for an uncomfortably long time, then offered us some of his smoked cuttlefish.

The morning after, we woke up early. The streets were quiet and mostly empty from the night before – as if the whole city had stayed up too late playing with fireworks. Even the cherry trees showed signs of hangover – many of them had lost their petals, and so the sidewalks looked like they were covered with snow in spots. Roving bands of youths threw them at each other – a springtime snowball fight.

I bent down to throw some at my girlfriend when a cloud of white and pink exploded around me. I ran down the street after her, already plotting how I'd get her back next year. 

To get to Jinhae, get on city bus #760 at the stop across the street from the Masan Express Bus Terminal. After 20 minutes, get off at the big traffic circle. The Cherry Blossom Festival is held every year for two weeks at the end of March to the beginning of April.