Mad busy today, so no time to write. Sucks.
Have a few minutes in which I should be rewriting two letters, but bluagh, as RG used to say. (Or was it "bluagh"? Heh.)
I was stupid last night and went to a gayageum concert instead of going home and resting like a good convalescent. Decided at the last minute that I might get to meet an ambassador or two and went. Of course, I got lost, asked a policeman where Kumho Gallery was, went there, was told I was at the wrong Kumho Gallery, went back to the policeman who then apologized and directed me to the actual venue.
Well, only 40 minutes of wandering around in freezing cold weather (it snowed yesterday, remember?).
I know I sound grumpus (shout out to Sean -- mistakenly credited Wendy last time) about it, but when I was wandering around, I was perversely happy. I don't know, it's something about wandering.
Also, after about 20 minutes, I was DETERMINED to find the place, even if I was going to be late late late. Why? Because if I went home at that time, I'd miss dinner anyway, so I HAD to find the place, in order to get some eats!
I ended up missing about half the performance, but I really enjoyed the latter half, and 30 minutes was about enough. The gayageum is a 12-stringed zither, and the composer (who also played) did some interesting avante garde stuff with it, including a piece with a singer where the singer laughed and cried for a minute, read the newspaper, made white noise, and generally did everything except sing. The thing about avante garde music, though, is that it's like a puzzle -- what is the composer getting at? what message does s/he want to convey? -- and once you figure out the puzzle, it's kind of like, okay, can we get to the next piece now? So after I figured out that okay, Maestro Hwang wants to show us that the gayageum is versatile and can be beaten like a drum, and made to sound like white noise, and can evoke joy and tears and distress, I was ready for some very non-avante garde, pretty music. Which he provided. Beautifully.
I didn't meet any embassy folks, but I did have a nice time talking to a bunch of Foundation Fellows, and scored promises from Foundation people that I'd be invited to all the cultural events that the Fellows get to go to. Nice night's work.