Christmas in Seoul, Reprise

We went to Seoul this weekend. We saw the Korea National Ballet perform The Nutcracker, had Indian food at that fantastic restaurant in Itaewon where we ate last Christmas, and went ice skating at Seoul Plaza. As you may have guessed, this trip was my Christmas present.

I loved seeing the Nutcracker again, which was very similar to the one I've seen at home, but a little different. There were similar costumes and sets, for example, but the Christmas tree had a fish on it. Not a fish ornament, a giant goldfish. There was also no nutcracker. The orchestra made the nut-cracking noise during the song when Drosselmeyer introduces the doll, but the doll was a kid wearing a lot of makeup and more closely resembled a clown. I guess the choreographers thought Koreans wouldn't know what a nutcracker is, anyway. The little girl who played Clara was amazing. She was doing some complicated stuff en pointe and she couldn't have been older than 13. They added a Christmas song medley at the end, when the dancers took their final curtain call.

The cabdriver who took us to the Seoul Arts Center (a fantastic, three storied opera house) didn't know what ballet was, which didn't surprise me after trying to explain it to my staff. There's a credit card commercial over here starring a famous ballerina, so I had thought it was in the public consciousness but I guess not. And yes, it is called ballet in Korea.

Seoul Plaza was all done up with a lighted Christmas tree and a large snow globe, and there was a skating rink in the center. Bobby preferred to stand on the sidelines and laugh at me as I struggled to remember how to skate. I finally got the hang of it about five minutes before closing time.

We encountered a protest at the train station, which isn't unusual. I see protests about 75% of the time I come to Seoul Station. The man on stage was shouting something very angrily, and I wasn't surprised when our cabdriver told us they were protesting the government's inaction in response to the bombing on Yeonpyeong Island. Many Koreans are upset about this, understandably so. The US is still in a war we entered as retaliation for the September 11 attacks nine years ago. Americans who have been in Korea for awhile are very nonchalant about the incidents this year. They say it has always been like this. I wonder if this fervor is going to die down after awhile.