Korean students also achieved one other feat of academic notoriety: last place in the Creativity category. (What did you expect from a country where 1/4 of the population has the last name Kim?)
This last statistic is not only evident in elementary school classrooms--where a complete lack of hand-turkeys during the month of November reflects this deficiency--but also in the nation's festivals, which often seem the result of a lackluster game of "I Spy" during a trip to the supermarket. Since I've come to Korea I've been to the Rice Festival, the Ricecake Festival, the Kimchi Festival, the Fermented Seafood Festival, the Tea Festival, the Ginseng Festival, and the Soju Festival.
There are also a number of nature-based festivals, which were incorporated with much of the same "Hey look at that thing, let's make a festival out of it" mentality, like the Sand Festival, the Butterfly Festival, and the Herb Festival. (The upcoming Snow Festival in Taebaeksan might just be the dark horse I've been waiting for.)
This July I made my way over to west-coast town of Boryeong for their annual Mud Festival, a relatively new amalgamation of the older and less popular Dirt Festival and Water Festival. Now while mud might not seem particularly appetizing to a majority of individuals over the age of five, the Korean government has come up with a potent cocktail to combat this natural aversion:
1. Take 1 million foreigners
2. Mix dirt and water together
3. Employ mediocre local Korean punk bands
4. Add liberal amounts of soju
5. Subtract any remaining sentiments of shame or self-preservation
"Whoo college! I mean, Korea! And fo-hawks!"
Top this off with Korea's mythical Midas Touch--instantly making any animal, vegetable, or mineral manufactured in Korea the best in the entire world--and you've got yourself a powerful source of revenue for local merchants and transportation authorities.
Pay a visit to the official Mud Festival website (not porn) and you'll be greeted by two things: images of smiling cartoon characters who look disturbingly like Korean children in blackface; and anonymous testimonials (might be porn) confirming the superiority of Korean mud to all other muds of the Earth. Words like "minerals," "germanium," and "eruption" are used coherently enough that it must be true, contrary to reported cases of a hookworm outbreak during the 2009 festivities.
But that was 2009. This year's festival would prove to be the wildest, muddiest, least-parasitic one ever! (With the exception of a few Italians hanging out by the parking lot, this actually turned out to be true.)
Who doesn't love a good mud fight with strangers? Or a mud slide with a penchant for snagging bathing suits and making people strangers no more?
$10 says you didn't notice the mud on her face.
There really is something for everyone at the Boryeong Mud Festival, as long as your hobbies don't include being clean, having self-respect, or not peeing in the ocean because porter potties are in dire short supply.
And if you do ever find yourself in Boryeong, Korea--or any other coastal town whose fishing industry has been crippled by pollution and needs an instant cash-cow--remember these five basic rules so as to avoid any unnecessary stays in Mud Prison:
Did you think I was joking?
1. When the provided mud supply is exhausted during a mud fight, it's not okay to throw water on dirt from the parking lot and use that as ammunition.
Italians are absolutely NOT excluded from this rule.
2. When consuming alcohol during the festival, try to avoid getting mud in your bottle/can and ingesting it repeatedly. The result will be an even dirtier mud pie after breakfast the following morning.
A '97 Bordeaux nicely complements the taste of shit in your teeth.
3. Contrary to popular practices, mud is not slimming.
Sorry buddy.
4. If you don't like feeling dirty, try colored mud! It's just like regular mud, only with lots of artificial dyes that are applied directly to your skin!
English: Make me look like the sky!
Korean translation: Turn me into a Smurf with vitiligo.
5. Mud is not meant for personal consumption. Avoid contact with eyes and mouth. If mud is accidentally consumed, please inform the nearest person with a camera.
Easy fellas, she's spoken for.
One more time..
There we go. Who's the coolest kid in school now?
