Buddha's birthday and rave parties

Despite my addiction to colourful sneakers ( see True Love South Korean style Part 1) I never really embraced the rave scene back in Melbourne in the late 1990s. The big, noisy parties that started way too late didn't hold enormous appeal to me and my totally suburban roots at the time but, now in my mid 30s with three children, I feel that it may be time to change all that. See, here in Seoul form mid-April to mid-May it is the lead up to and actual day of Buddha's birthday and the celebrations totally rock. How does Buddha's birthday link with raves you ask? Quite a bit actually. Firstly, it's the drumming. Mesmerising, heart pumping, body shaking drumming that rocks you to your core much like the rhythmic beats of the rave. Then there are the thousands upon thousands of paper lanterns (all handmade, which take a ridiculously long time and for the lotus lanterns require infinite patience to twirl and stick) replacing the ubiquitous neon glow sticks of the rave as symbols of joviality (I could be wrong here as to what the glow sticks are exactly meant to represent. The lanterns represent wisdom - they bring light to the world). Finally, it is the vibe people. In the weeks leading up to Buddha's birthday, particularly during the lantern festival the week before and the actual day, Seoul is one happy place! You easily forget that you are in a city of 20 million other people all in a hurry to get somewhere. Seoul's mantra of "ppali, ppali" (translation: "quickly, quickly") seems to slow down, if ever so fleetingly, and you are happy to just be - how very Buddha indeed.

The lights of the Daeungjeon, the largest temple building in Seoul

Two highlights of this year's birthday celebrations:

1. Aerobics Buddha style - the warm up act for the lantern parade held the week before Buddha's birthday. The lantern parade goes for almost three hours and is filled with thousands and thousands of smiling faces who walk a 3 kilometre stretch of road dressed in costumes and holding lanterns of all kinds of shapes, sizes and colours. Before the parade begins, a Buddha aerobics group entertained us with an amazing display of part cheerleader and part gymnast moves and, of course, matching enthusiasm.

Go Buddha aerobics man go! 

2. The white dogs. If you are able to remain sedentary by the end of this tribalistic, animalistic performance then you are most likely dead. Each white dog (there are two of them) consists of two impressively fit men who, to the increasingly frantic beats of the the pom-pom people, make their dogs jump over each other, play fight, rear up on their hind legs and they even manage to roll with each other  in a dog embrace. It is really quite amazing. Watching the white dogs accompanied by the pom pom head drumming and all my husband/mother/new city frustrations were successfully beaten out (at least for the remainder of that particular night). If raves are this good then I want in! Looking forward to next year already! 

Soul to Seoul - the path to enlightenment for this soul is all about the drum beat. 

The white dogs being followed by the white pom pom people

The multi-coloured pom pom people