Person of the Week: Sinchon's Piano Man

Seoul's Sinchon Rotary is always crowded. During the week, it's full of university students as this spot is close to four universities: Sogang (where I used to play tennis!), Yonsei, Ewha Woman's, and Hong-ik. The main artery of Sinchon, Yonsei-ro, is full of cafes, shops, private institutes and restaurants.

Last July, Yonsei-ro, the artery connecting Sinchon Rotary to the entrance of Yonsei University, hosted a huge water slide where those who wanted to cool off during the summer stripped down to their swim wear and slid down the slipper slide.

But tonight, as I walked along Yonsei-ro from my quick visit to service center to have my defective USB checked, I spotted this guy playing on a piano on the sidewalk. He was oblivious to the noises of people passing by and buses driving past him. 

The melodies he was playing attracted some passers-by, including myself. I stood for a few minutes to listen to his virtuoso performance, and for a moment, if only the acoustics were good, and if the piano's strings were of better quality, his mini-concierto could have been worthy of standing ovation from everyone. Well, actually, since everyone was standing to listen, it was indeed a standing ovation. 

Like most of Korean kids, I also studied piano when I was in grade school. But this talented piano man performing along Yonsei-ro is probably a music major, who was just polishing his Rachmaninoff on this rusty upright piano and playing for anyone who just wanted to listen to some music amidst the noise of the city.

This musician is our person of the week.

Performer of the Season: Mr. Ham, the Magician

If you were at the Yeouido Cherry Blossom Festival last month, you must have seen him in the middle of a huge crowd doing magic tricks. That's where I bumped into his performance.

       

Since it's a festival, it was just proper to have street performers to entertain the crowds visiting from all over Seoul, and from other countries as well. 

And while some visitors were happy enough to be dazzled with the cherry blossoms and the flowers displayed along Yeouido's most popular lane, most visitors were surprised that the festival didn't only welcome them with petals and plants, they were entertained with street performances!

                              (Mr. Ham breathes fire!)

            (Hundreds encircle Mr. Ham to watch his show
                     in the middle of the Yeouido street)

Yes, live street performances are usually the ones that make a festival more exciting as these actually engage the audience. 

And one performer is the artist, Mr. Ham, who brought his The Happening Show to the festival and performed for the crowds. The kids, who I presumed would have been bored just watching the cherry blossoms and having photos with their parents, were especially mesmerized by Mr. Ham's magic tricks! How often would you bump into a magic show along a street in Seoul, anyway?

                 (Mr. Ham poses with a fan after the show)

As he doesn't just perform during festivals, you may bump into one of Mr. Ham's street performances on any park or street in Seoul.

Here's The Happening Show's Facebook page. Give it a 'Like' and you may see him do his magic tricks while you're walking around Seoul one day.

https://www.facebook.com/thehappeningshow?fref=ts

My Person of The Week: The Korean Lady With A Pojang-Macha In Insadong

It's a new lunar year, and I want to start a new blog series: My Person of the Week. These will be the people who make a difference in other people's lives whether they're aware of it or not. Or people who are just helpful and always around to make everyone's day complete, safer, cleaner, happier, or just better.

A few years ago, I wrote about a blog about my 100 most influential people, as inspired by TIME Magazine's 100 most influential people. So I ask myself why wait for a year to name the 100 most influential people when I can actually give recognition to a person during a week I found one.

But if there are people who make everyone's day better, I wonder if I can name those notorious characters also 'person of the week'. Can I?  One recent character comes to mind: that spoiled brat who treated her airline staff like slaves, and not as human beings. You know who I mean, right?

Don't you sometimes stop to think about how the other people walking on the street, or riding on the same bus or train are doing? I guess that's part of being a writer; I am always interested in another person's story, stranger or not. I love listening to interesting stories, and even love writing about them. Yes, some people's stories are actually worth my keystrokes. Ha-ha-ha!

And this week, I introduce to you the Korean ajumma, or Korean lady, who sells those fried Korean delicacies at the end of the long Insa-dong alley. When most people travel to their hometowns on Seollal, she was there working at her corner eager to make a living.  She has her own pojang-macha, right next to her long table. What attracted me to her corner was her caramelized sweet potatoes. These are actually popular in the Philippines. So, after I finished my Korean barbecue that I bought from another stall, I wandered around for dessert and found it on her table!

There were actually two foreigners who also wandered into her corner, and even if her two guests couldn't speak Korean, she was able to serve their orders and was able to welcome them into her pojang-macha.

But what impressed me was, even though she was busy serving and cooking, she helped look after the baby of another Korean woman who needed to go to a toilet. The mom left her baby on a stroller next to her long table, and she engaged the baby in a conversation to keep the baby entertained while the mom was away. It was a cute scene: the baby in a stroller dressed in a hanbok was engaging the ajumma in a conversation. 

That little gesture of kindness to look after a stranger's baby may seem a little trifle to some. But to a mom, who had to desperately find a loo after walking around the whole morning with a baby, it was a big help to have someone safely watch over your child while you take a break.

That's why this Korean ajumma running a pojang-macha at the southern end of Insa-dong is My Person of the Week.

          (The person of the week with the baby in a stroller)