Month: January 2017

We left early after breakfast on January 5th for the city of Gunsan, a three hour drive south from Seoul. It’s a smaller, coastal town, right next to the US Air Force base. Our bus had a large, flatscreen TV, and during the first half of the drive, we watched K-Pop videos and a documentary about an isolated tribe that fished and hunted using bows and clubs, and roasted a monkey over a fire for food. We stopped to stretch our legs and use the bathroom after an hour-and-a-half, and people purchased a variety of snacks for the rest of the ride. I myself got a bag of walnut-shaped red bean cakes. They had a soft, golden brown exterior, and the filling had bits of walnut throughout.

When we arrived in Gunsan, we had lunch at a restaurant named “Arirang,” which is also one of the pieces we were singing in Korea. It’s a popular folk tune about a mountain pass, and most everybody in Korea is familiar with it. After lunch, we drove to the meeting point for our housing. According to the best approximate translation, we were going to be staying in Korean guest houses, sort of like a bed and breakfast joint. There were mats on the floor for us to sleep on, a spartan bathroom with a toilet, sink, and shower, and not much space for anything else. We just had time to say hi to our hosts and grab our music and tails before we were whisked off to the Gunsan Art Center.

The Art Center is a surprisingly expansive public work for such a small town. It was constructed in 2013, so its sleek, angular design was a bit incongruous next to the rest of the town, which was a bit smaller and more traditional. The other peculiar thing about the stage was that there was a large thrust, which made the audience seem far away. When we entered, we met the Gunsan Civic Chorale, a professional chorus, and rehearsed our joint pieces with them.

After the joint rehearsal, we had a bit of time to ourselves on the stage, and we went through our own set.

Next on the schedule was dinner, a buffet at a place known for their pork cutlets. All-you-can-eat is always a good choice for the Glee Club, and we filled up on all kinds of tasty food.

The Gunsan Civic Chorale performed first during the concert, and it was then that we realized how good of a choir they were. During our rehearsal with them, our singing mixed in with their singing, making it hard to hear their group sound. When they were in performance mode, they were astounding. Dynamics, phrasing, tempo, pitch, and energy were just right. They got the most out of every piece, and their soloists were quite impressive.

When it was our turn to go on, we knew we had to rise to the occasion. On the whole, we did. It was our best concert on tour so far, and during the football songs, the audience got in on the performance by clapping, albeit off-tempo.

Our finale, the joint performance of the Gunsan conductor’s arrangement of “Arirang,” was also received quite well.

After the performance, we attended a reception with the Chorus, during which time they gave us a plaque from the city of Gunsan, a framed commemorative poster from the concert, and food.

We mingled with the other chorus, and even took a couple of photos with them (kimchi!). At the end, there was a raffle, and several of us won fun prizes, like fans and paper crafts, which they claimed by doing some dance moves.

Afterward, we returned to our guest houses, where we were greeted by our hosts. Many of them had attended the concert, and they all praised our performance, which was a good way to end the day.

Author: Curtis Wu

Today we had very unique and special day of exchange with the students of the Korean International school (a K through 12 Anglophone school based in Seoul). We were all assigned to lead workshops that were attended by the students of the school; a golden opportunity for us to talk about our interests, learn from the Korean students, and try our hand at teaching kids – and indeed, it is not that easy! On their side, the students from KIS were able to learn about Harvard, new challenging or fun topics, and meet and interact with us all.

The morning we all rose from our bunk beds and congregated for an 8am breakfast in one of the Korean International School cafeterias. The place was already bustling with students from the school receiving their meal; but though the line was long, the service was extremely efficient: we received a hodge-podge of items including cereal, juice, mushroom soup, ham, toast, salad, and fruit, all in one tray with slots of various shapes in sizes. Made me realize I miss high school cafeteria!

Immediately after breakfast we were shown around some the school premises by Javier, our liaison at the school. We were grateful for the tour: the campus was decently big (I myself managed to get hopelessly lost later on in the day, only to be saved by the personnel around). As we went along the tour we dispersed into the rooms in which we were to give our workshops. Half of the Glee Club was assigned to a morning session, while the other half was free to roam and prepare an afternoon session, and after lunch break the groups switched.

The workshops included more musical activities such as singing, composing, sight-reading, but also a broad variety of other topics including Logic and Reasoning, Basics of Computer Science, Applying to an American College, Basketball, and explanations about Life at Harvard – the latter being by far the most attended.

One group taught a workshop on music composition, and had to improvise quickly when their pupils were much younger than expected. Thanks to the elementary school’s music facilities (xylophones and drums) they still had a fun time.

My group broached the topic of logic and reasoning. We gave them various puzzles, showed them the AND, OR and NOT tables, and even showed them some mathematical magic card tricks to make them work out the mechanism.

A final group including our conductor Harris Ipock gave a vocal performance workshop. It was fun and interactive for the kids, and a small impromptu performance was given.

After the workshops, we congregated for a rehearsal in the school auditorium. We prepared for a shorter evening recital, and then had our second dinner in South Korea: pizza!

After the more intense experience of the first concert in Taipei, we felt rather relaxed about the second concert, and we had a lot of fun in the process.

A highlight: our president Quincy Cason, upon announcing his role, is hailed by a general “oooo!” from the audience, and is then immediately hit by a spotlight; President of the Harvard Glee Club has an impressive ring to it for sure.

A few minutes after we stepped off the stage, we were surprised by a person telling us: “the audience is still clapping, they are waiting for an encore!” Lite was frantically reassembled and performed one more song to the cheers of the crowd.

We mingled among the crowd as it left the hall, providing an occasion for many selfies and group photos. Finally we were greeted by the school officials including the founder of the school, for whom we sung our domine as a thanks for the fantastic exchange.

After the recital, a sizeable portion of gleeks went to the Gangnam district to hang out and try chicken feet stew and soju (for the adventurous).

As a close to the evening, we retreated to dorms, played cards, did our laundry chatted, and prepared our suitcases for the early departure next morning. We were coming back to the dorms in a few days (and looking forward to it!) so we thankfully could pack lighter.

Author: Jeffery Durand

After a memorable (or maybe not so memorable for some) night at Party World karaoke in Taipei, it was time to head out for the next city on our trip — Seoul, South Korea. After a smooth check-in process at the Taoyuan International Airport, we were all set to board our Air Korea flight to Incheon International Airport. Aboard this flight we had our first experience with Korean hospitality – although the flight was short, the flight attendants took very good care of us. I was impressed by the frequency with which we were offered food and drink, as well as the fluency of the flight attendants in English, Chinese, and Korean. Our trip concluded with pleasantly short wait times for customs and baggage claim at the airport in Seoul.

On the way to our accommodations in Korea, it became obvious how cold it was outside as the glass began to fog up on the interior of the bus. Though this blocked our view of the landscape, it provided an opportunity for some to begin planning for tomorrow’s workshops at the Korean International School, and for others to rest. We took some time to rest at a Korean barbeque restaurant on the way – this was to be our first meal in Korea. I was with the group that was given floor mats to sit on, but one could immediately notice that the floor mats were heated from underneath – how nice is it to be able to sit on the floor without being cold!

We were given sheets of meat to cook and cut ourselves (though we were aided by the waiter); served with an assortment of condiments and side dishes, the delicious meat was aggressively seasoned and definitely the highlight of the dinner, eaten alone or in a lettuce wrap (I was told that the vegetarians enjoyed their meal too). The servers at the restaurant were attentive and accommodating of the obvious language barrier; however, it soon surfaced that a number of the servers were Chinese-Korean and spoke fluent Chinese, and some fun conversation followed.

Soon after we re-boarded the bus, we arrived at the Korean International School and were shown our accommodations. The majority of us were to be housed in spacious four-person dormitory rooms’ bunk beds. Though more modest than our Taipei accommodations, these rooms will certainly allow us a comfortable stay in Seoul; however, we noticed a few interesting quirks as soon as we arrived. First, the floor was again heated! This made going barefoot in the bedroom quite comfortable, making it easy for us to respect this aspect of Korean etiquette. Second, Wi-Fi was not available in the bedrooms! This forces students to congregate in common areas for web access, promoting the social scene at the school in a manner both clever and astounding. That night, we engaged in various activities, including planning for the next day’s workshops with the Korean International School students, an outing to Gangnam, a poker night, and a Sherlock (the TV series) watching party.

Overall, a fantastic first day in Korea.

Author: Jimmy Jiang

[A quick note: sincere apologies for the big delay in the blog updates. We will be updating all the previous missing days very soon in addition to the upcoming days]

The morning was spent busy packing in the KIS dormitories, along with a final breakfast in the busy highschool cafeteria for those that had the courage or energy left to wake up. Some, including myself, were a bit late to laundry process, and had to resort to laying out socks, underwear and shirts on the heated floor to make them dry faster than on the racks! Finally we met at 10:30am and loaded the two buses, and bid our farewell to the amazing KIS staff with our traditional “Domine Salvum Fac.” We set on the final leg of our journey: to Japan, the land of the Rising Sun!

The travel to Japan – with a bus ride to the airport, plane ride to Osaka KIX, and bus ride to Osaka – was itself uneventful, many of us using the time to catch up on sleep. We all unanimously enjoyed the quality of the Korean Air service, with on-flight entertainment and quality snacks served despite the flight being about an hour long. The club was hailed at the arrival gate by a team from the Shin Osaka Youth Hostel, where we were to spend our night. We were surprised at the length of the bus ride to the hostel, and so were grateful to finally make it to our small yet confortable hostel rooms: our first bedroom in Japan!

The group dispersed for dinner, with a contingent following Taggart Murphy (who was in the Glee Club during the Europe tour of ’73, was now living in Japan for almost 40 years, and had played a critical role in the planning of this tour) to the lively area of Kita-Ku. Back at the hostel, despite the very spotty wifi, we all enjoyed games (especially card games), conversations, and the manga library before setting to bed, with tomorrow’s explorations and concert in mind.

[More pictures coming soon!]

Author: Jeffery Durand