Unlike the previous two nights, every chorus group was going to be in the main hall, so seating had to be portioned out. We found out section, and were proud to see it cordoned off just like the major league groups like Manado. To kick off the ceremony, a group of local middle schoolers sang a few songs in Korean.The preliminary speech was given by a lady involved in the planning of the whole thing. She gave way to Hur Nam-sik, the mayor of Busan, whose speech was translated beautifully into English by his assistant. Next came Jean-Claude Wilkens, the Secretary General of the International Federation for Choral Music. After a short and witty speech, which a lady valiantly attempted to translate into Korean, he began presenting awards.
While I can't remember who all the prize winners were, I'm fairly certain the Korean groups won nothing. (Neither Japanese group formally competed; we only performed at the friendship concerts.) Group 'Rojdestvo' won bronze in their category, and Northern Kentucky University won silver in theirs. The biggest winners by far were the southeast Asian groups. The Cebu Chamber Singers and Capitol University Glee Club each won the gold in their categories. As their names were called, all the other groups from that country erupted in raucous applause--there were four groups each from Indonesia and the Philippines.The final prize, in a glorious display of redundancy, was called the "Grand Prix Prize," and was worth US$10,000. The prize went to the Dithyrambic Singers. When their name was called, half of the auditorium erupted in applause. All of the winners took another bow, and filed off stage.
Right after the awards, Mr. Wilkens announced that there would be a Winners' Gala Concert immediately following the ceremony, and would include the three winners of the gold prize winner and the winner of the "Grand Prix Prize." This took everyone by surprise, including the winners, and, after a quick discussion, a fifteen-minute break was called while the groups warmed up and prepared.
The concert was beautiful. The Dithyrambics performed "Suriram," a Malay traditional song, as well as their scary Balay-Gi, a song whose meaning and language I still can't find.One group reprised this song from one of the gala concerts, but I can't find anything concrete on the name of the song or its meaning. The best I've come up with is the name: 八骏赞, which I gather means "Eight Magnificent Horses."
As far as I was concerned, the song that stole the show was Capitol University's rendition of This is the Moment. That's the video of the actual performance, too--it's easy to see what made it so good.
The finale was an all-play: all the winning groups assembled on-stage, and led the audience in a performance of Arirang, a Korean folk song. (There are plenty of videos on YouTube of it, like this one.) Every seat in the auditorium had a copy of the music, so all ~1,500 of us joined in.After the concert, everyone filed out. Group 'Rojdestvo' looked kind of glum, especially since they'd shown up in their festive costumes from the night before, carrying a balalaika. One of the guys, carrying an accordion, played a mournful tune as he strolled away from the building.
We made our way back to the bus and headed for the hotel. Most of the group was ready to call it a night, but Kazumi and Tomoko wanted to do a little more shopping. On their list was a stop at Krispy Kreme, for donuts to carry back to Tsushima the next day. Everyone wanted some, so we made a big list of how many dozens we needed. Not surprisingly, I decided to tag along.
As the rest of the group got out of the van, I moved up closer to the front. Kim sat down near me, turned around and, in sheepish yet perfect English, asked me to speak to her in English, to help her practice pronunciation.
Looking ahead to breakfast the next day, I asked if there was a Pizza Hut near the Krispy Kreme we were headed to, which made all three of them laugh at me. Sure enough, there was one close by. We dropped in and ordered, then headed to Starbucks for Tomoko. She was intent on getting a plain cup of coffee--not milk coffee, not caramel latte, but straightforward black coffee.
The whole time, I talked with Kim. She was stressing about papers due in her classes. When she told me the length of the one due next--3-5 pages--we both agreed the hardest part about writing papers is actually sitting down to do it. I found out that she volunteered to help with the Choral Festival, and was in no way paid for it. I also found out that one of her favorite restaurants is Pizza Hut. She also loves Mountain Dew. I swear I didn't put her up to saying it, and I hadn't said anything about Mountain Dew to her.
From Starbucks we went back to Pizza Hut, paid, and walked out with my unfortunately piping hot, large pan-crust pepperoni pizza. From there we headed to Krispy Kreme, but we stopped on the way at a sidewalk shop. Someone was selling inserts for shoes that make you a little taller, and Kazumi wanted to buy some for the man running for mayor of Tsushima. She had me try on a pair to model them before buying them.
Krispy Kreme had a bit of an evening rush going on. When we got to the counter and ordered about fifteen dozen, we had the satisfaction of seeing the poor girl's eyes go wide for just a second. Even with Kim's help, it took lots of repeating to get the order straight. (The biggest obstacle was the assorted dozens; I don't understand why anybody gets anything besides glazed.) When it became apparent that it'd take them a little while, we moved to a table so we could get the money straightened out.
Kim offered (offered! offered!) to go with me to find some Mountain Dew, so we headed out for a little side adventure. I have no idea how much of her sudden talkativeness was her availing herself of the chance to practice English, but when a mighty cute Korean girl wants to speak English and show me Pizza Hut and Mountain Dew, I don't ask many questions.
We found a nearby convenience store, I bought a can, and we headed back to Krispy Kreme, talking the whole way. Her English was surprisingly good, especially considering her majoring in a non-English foreign language. We got back to Krispy Kreme, where they had almost finished squaring everything away. I took the chance to arrange on the table my favorite elements of Korean cuisine: Pizza Hut, Mountain Dew, and Krispy Kreme.
We headed out, sending Kim home in a taxi. We roughly divided up the boxes of donuts, separated, and said goodnight. Not surprisingly, Mrs. Abiru was in the room hanging out with Noguchi when I got back. I stayed up for a while talking to them about random things. Abiru at one point remarked on the size of the NKU girls' chests. Not knowing exactly how to handle that topic around Japanese women, I relied on Noguchi to carry the conversation. Japanese people are fascinating, even more so when they drink.
No comments:
Post a Comment