Buddha's Birthday

Following the lunar calendar, today is Buddha's birthday. Temples are all ornately decorated with multicolored lanterns. I went into Seoul this morning AND this evening to see the decorations and just observe the event. It was one of the most interesting things I did last year, so I was really excited for this holiday to come around again.

In the morning, I visited Jogyesa in central Seoul. It was drizzly this morning but not wet enough to keep people indoors. The place was packed, but I felt less obtrusive this year than last year. Maybe I've learned something about blending in during the past year, or maybe I've just stopped noticing. The lanterns created a rainbow that blanketed the sky.

Each of the lanterns has a little piece of laminated paper hanging under it. I think the papers are prayers. They're really pretty when they flutter in the wind. There were some people in an elevator hanging prayers from the lanterns. It was funny to watch because people on the ground were shouting instructions to them . I think they were just trying to hang them in rows, but one woman in particular kept giving them orders. I was very pleased with myself for being able to follow the conversation . . . and very amused by what I heard.

"The blue one!" the woman yelled.

"This one?" a man asked, pointing to a blue lantern.

"No, that one!" the woman replied.

The man pointed to the next blue lantern. "This one?" he asked.

"No, that one!" the woman replied. And so on for another 3 or 4 exchanges until the man located the specific blue lantern and hung her paper there.At one place on the temple ground there is a big stone basin of water that people were placing lit candles in. It has a glass shelter around it to shield it from the wind. I don't know what the candles are for, but I stood and watched for a while, curious but trying to stay out of the way.At the back the temple, all the lanterns were white. I've read that the white lanterns are for people who have died, but I can't find anything else that explains that, and I haven't had a chance to ask anyone yet. They were very pretty anyway.There were also a couple statues of a baby Buddha in ornate flower-covered stands. People stood in long lines to pour water over the statue and say a prayer. It reminded me of baptism. It was interesting to me to stand and watch people take part in a ritual in some ways similar to the Christian practices I'm already familiar with. It made me feel less of a stranger.After walking around the temple grounds and observing for a couple hours, I headed back out the temple gate, but turned around and glanced inside again for one last look at the rainbow behind me. I'm glad I did, because if I hadn't, I would have missed this giant lotus flower lantern hanging near the main gate to the temple grounds.From Jogyesa, I went home for a few hours. The rain picked up through the afternoon so that when I walked from the subway station to my apartment building, it was in a downpour. I wanted to go back out in the evening, but I almost let the weather deter me. Then I remembered how spectacular the lanterns were at night last year and how I didn't want to miss the lights this year, especially if this might be my last spring in Korea, so in the early evening, I headed back into Seoul but to a different temple this time. I went to Bongeunsa, which I visited during the day on Buddha's birthday last year but not at night. It was pouring down rain, so the already crowded temple grounds were made all the more crowded by everyone walking around with umbrellas. The result was that to get through the crowd, you either had to duck down low and walk under all the umbrellas or hold your own umbrella up over those of everyone else. I managed to find a relatively uncrowded part of the temple and stood for a while to listen to the prayers and chanting.I enjoy visiting temples, but I always feel a little awkward because I don't entirely know what to do and what not to do. I really just want to observe, but I want to make sure I don't make an unwitting mistake and offend everyone. To achieve this, I try to sit or stand in the back and near an exit. It's a strategy similar to church visitors and students who don't want to be called on in class.

As I stood and listened to the prayers and music, a woman with a teenage boy came and stood directly in front of me, smacking my head hard with one of the points on her umbrella and drizzling me with the runoff. They never even turned around or acknowledged that this event happened. I laughed it off and decided that in my grand effort to be respectful of and inconspicuous in this culture and religion that are not my own, I managed to succeed, if only for two people!

The monk who was leading the ceremony started talking about colors (I know my colors in Korean. I am a kindergarten teacher, after all!) and motioning toward another part of the temple. I think he was talking about the lanterns there, which were multicolored and similar to the lanterns at Jogyesa. I don't know if he was talking about the significance of the colors. For that matter, I don't know if the individual colors are significant or just a matter of aesthetics, but I was pleased to at least have the vaguest idea of what he was talking about.

Then he called to the congregation, and they answered him. There were another couple call-and-response exchanges, and then BOOM! Even on this very rainy day, they set off fire works, and at very close range. You couldn't see anything. They just made a lot of smoke and a lot of noise in the rain. It startled me so much that I let out a little shriek, which made some people around me giggle and others stare. So much for being inconspicuous. No one else seemed to be that surprised, so I wonder if the call-and-response wasn't really a prayer or ceremony but was really something like this:

MONK: We're going to have fireworks.

PEOPLE: Good! We can't wait.

MONK: Brace yourself, they'll be loud.

PEOPLE: Okay!

MONK: Are you ready?

PEOPLE: Yes, we're ready!

MONK: Here we go!

BOOM!

I guess I'll never know. After the fireworks, someone somewhere flipped a switch, and all the lanterns were turned on. The photo doesn't do the scene justice. It was beautiful to see all these lights illuminating the dreary sky in color.

I made my way through the umbrellas and followed the short, muddy trail around the temple. The lanterns along the trail were not electric but were made to put candles inside. Because of the rain, only a couple were lit, and those had little newspaper covers over the top. They looked like a fire hazard to me, even in the bad weather.I decided I'd had enough rain for a while, so I left the temple, pausing to take this photo of the big lantern in the main gate.To get back to the subway station, I had to pass through COEX, a big mall and convention center. I hadn't eaten dinner, so I stopped at the food court and then made my way over to a foreign candy store to buy some Jelly Bellies for my 15-year-old friend Chloe who has had a jelly bean craving lately. She says they're good luck for her school tests. Then I took the subway even farther into Seoul and visited Jogyesa again, hoping to see the rainbow lanterns all lit up.

Unfortunately, when I got to Jogyesa, everything was dark. Either I spent too much time at COEX, or they turned the lights off early because of the weather. It was still fun to walk around the nearly deserted temple grounds, even in the rain, and imagine what it had looked like all lit up just a few hours earlier. Fortunately, I saw it last year, so I don't need to leave too much to my imagination alone.There were still people inside the main temple hall bowing and saying prayers. I took this one picture from outside the main hall, looking in.Then I headed back to my town to change into some dry clothes and prepare for tomorrow's classes. It seems strange to have a holiday on a Thursday and then go to work on Friday, but on the other hand, this was a wonderful break in the week. Here's one last photo I took of the lanterns in the center of my down, looking back up toward the train station.It was a good day. Happy 2,551st, Buddha!