Festivals in Jinju

First there is the Jinju floating lantern Festival. Or the 진주남강유등축제. It will be from October first and will conclude on October tenth. It is always fun to go down by the river to look at the lanterns, and to play the games that they have. The lantern festival commemorates the first battle of Jinju during the Imjin war. Citizens put lanterns in the river to confuse the Japanese. It would look as though they were approaching the city, and then blam, they weren't approaching the city, it would just be a bunch of lanterns in the water.

Then there is the 91st sports festival. 제 91회 전국체육대회 I'll be interested in watching some of these events. I may have said before that in a past life I was quite the Taekwondo aficionado. Anyway the city of Jinju built a big stadium and a swimming facility just for this event. It will be from October 6th until the 12th.

My first brush with Korea was at the second international Hwarangdo festival in Jin Cheon county. The town went all ape shit to host us. I liked being a part of a large raffle where the prize ranged from bicycles to body wash. The organizers of the raffle yelled out the raffle ticket numbers in Korean, and when nobody would claim any prizes they would just say: Aw hell just give it to a foreigner. People from many different countries took place in that event.

Gacheon arts festival: They usually run this at the same time as the floating lantern festival. It can be hard to tell where the lantern festival ends and the art festival begins. But from the website it looks like there are some performing arts. It might be a good chance to see the "Jinju Sword Dance," which is something that I have never seen but have always wanted to.

The silk exhibition: 진주 실크 박람 회. I'll have to find out more info on this one. Usually it is at the same time as all of the other festivals. Jinju silk vendors set up shop in the city hall and then sell their silk products. Two years ago they set up a tent next to the river, near by where all of the other festival stuff was going on.

The Jinju Drama Festival: Also goes from October first to the twelfth. It looks like there will be an awards banquet. A famous Korean orchestra and famous Korean singers and actors will take part in an original sound track concert from Korean dramas. This will be at the Gyeongnam arts center on Sunday October 3rd at 2:00 P.M. On October 4th, it looks like there will be some talent scouts at the Gyeongnam arts festival. It looks like they will do a kind of American Idol type thing. That will be from 7:00-9:00 P.M. There are other events that seem to be going on here too. If you are into K-pop or K-dramas, this might be a good place to go. On the 2nd there will be a red carpet event at six in the evening. In years past, the late Andre Kim, has used the Drama festival as a platform to show off his new Hanbok collections. He always make a point to buy Jinju silk for his hanbok.

I hope you all can make it out to Jinju to see the festivals.