School Festival, or Boys in Drag

So Friday was our school festival, which proved to be much more... interesting than I could have even imagined. As I may or may not have mentioned, the only thing I knew for sure going in was that it would be all day, that three schools would be participating, that there would be a lot of musical acts, and that some of my boys would be dressed in drag.

This is, I guess, a really popular thing in Korea. I don't really know. So the beginning was predictable. There were about 20 different musical acts, including everything from traditional Korean instruments and dance (in traditional clothes with fans) to at least 5 separate hip hop dance numbers. (One of them was to the Pussycat Dolls song "Buttons," if that tells you anything.) I'm linking to some YouTube videos I uploaded so you can check out the caliber of the performances, if you're interested. Here's the boy hip-hop group: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt4e6wJ-JHA

Recorder performance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLbe1Tr_KmE

But the most interesting part of the day was the man beauty contest. It included 18 students total (6 from each school, I think). It was presided over by a student host, and I'm sure I missed out on a lot of the intricacies of it by not speaking Korean, but the gist was--they were dressed as girls, and each one had a concept. And it was all in fun, obviously, but it was still serious. Like, the teachers spent ages fixing them up. They were mostly in nice dresses, with real wigs and ornate makeup. Each "girl" got a chance to prance up the center of the auditorium (past the 300 some students) and then take her place onstage. Then there was what I guess was a talent portion, which consisted of each contestant singing or dancing (mostly dancing) for about 30 seconds.

What I really wanted to know was how the contestants got picked. I mean, our boygirls were all pretty cute, and made decent women, but they were mostly all painfully shy. You'll be able to tell from the pictures. I don't get the sense they were forced completely against their will, but their performance in the talent portion leads me to believe they were mortified, and thus, not terribly competitive. Some of the kids from the other school were seriously, seriously into it. Like, I saw some moves I'd never seen before, including dropping down in an ankle-length kimono with two slits up the side and grinding like you've never seen grinding. The second-place goybirl stopped halfway down the red carpet, grabbed one of his friends, and rubbed the students face in his fake breasts. These boys knew how to put on a show. But not my sweethearts...

Here's a long shot showing most of the competitors.

JG, one of my bowling boys. His concept was little black dress. I leaned over and commented to my co-teacher that his dress was nice, and she said: "Yeah, it's the math teacher's." (What?) Look at the show-off beside him. Floozy.

MJ--I love this kid too. His concept was apparently wedding dress, and he seemed pretty miserable.

I'm sad to say I don't remember his name (he's first grade, and I've not memorized them yet.) He was one of the more beautiful girls (his concept was, I think, virgin purity), but he was unable to gyrate much in that dress, which I think cost him during the "talent" portion.

Here's one of my sweetest boys, CJ. I'm not sure why they did that to him with that dress and wig. It's just so... 80s? I don't know. He was really really shy, and stood on stage most of the time with his arms covering his stomach (see other pictures). And his dance portion was about 10 seconds long before he jumped back in line desperately: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgCtf3ubmQQ

This reminds me of those awesome Jerry Springer transvestite shows with the tagline: "Who's the real woman?" Well, there are two real women in this picture, me and the principal. The goybirl second from left, GJ (in Korean traditional hanbok) actually won third place. See his video later. He was quite pretty, and not a floozy like the rest of 'em. Third place dance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3fL7oBq0Ww

And G's aerobic wonderpants: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_IhY3gnM6E

Our Samulnori (traditional Korean drumming) group, which dominated the other schools. Actually, it all sounded the same, which isn't to say not interesting.

Yoga. The do-rags are the best part.

Live octopus. Lunch. (It is not delicious.) See the video to see it squirming: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6itY7UTJEs

I'm also way excited because I've got my Halloween costume together! It actually turns out I have three, so I'm just going to wear a different costume every day this week. The one I'm most excited about is that I'm dressing as a Korean boy student. I bought a light blue long-sleeved shirt like our uniform shirt, a black necktie. I'm going to wear it with my black slacks and track jacket. And I even bought cartoon socks and slippers like the boys wear, as well as a pair of convincingly Korean glasses. I'm going to put temporary black dye in my hair too. It will be so awesome!