Last Sunday, 2nd of July, I found myself at the first Asian Festival in Sofia. Colorful, exciting and magical, this multicultural festival taught me many things. I admit, I maybe went there only expecting to fill my stomach with new and caressing the tongue dishes, but I actually filled my soul with much more. Hope I can convey the magic I was part of to you and maybe you can join the festval next summer!
So... Where to start from?
The festival showed 12 Asian countries - Vietnam, India, Indonesia, Iran, the Philippines, South Korea, Japan, China, Pakistan, Palestine, Syria and Thailand. They introduced their traditional cuisine, dances, and music and I can't help but say I was mesmerized by each and everyone of them all. Everything was so bright and vibrant, I didn't believe so many colors even existed in my spectrum!
These two cuties from the Philippines opened the festival with a traditional song and then...they even rapped! I was already convinced I was going to have a great time.
Later I even tried the so called Filipino bilo-bilo which, to be honest, made my brain and stomach go "wow what is this" (in the good way!) because of its consistency. It's made of sticky rice balls, bananas and sweet potatoes and it's served during festivals, weddings etc to symbolize union. It definetely united my taste receptor cells to scream "YES" and want more of this divine dessert... I guess I'll have to dream about it till next summer...
(it tastes 100 times better than it looks, I swear)
When I said I enriched my knowledge and soul I was not exagaratting though. I can proudly say I know a few simple Filipino phrases and can at least hold that 15 seconds long conversation.. which is something.. right? Right?!
Thailand, Thailand, Thailand...no doubt this remains my favourite Southeast Asian country. The first three pictures represent a traditional Thai dance called Rabam Lavo. Their way of dancing is a simple march round, very slow, and without drastic movements and the music on its own is relaxing and enchanting. The woman on the fourth photo is performing another traditional Thai dance called Manorah. The legends for the origin of the dance are numerous so I advice you read them all. My favourite one is about a young prince, Prasuthon. He had travelled in order to find his lover “Manohra” which is half bird, half human for 7 years 7 months 7 days. Then people started to call this dance Manohra... well, not sure exactly why but it sounds pretty cool anyway! The literal meaning of "manohra" is "mind's guider".
Also, unfortunately, I didn't get the chance to taste Thai cuisine, but here are some photos to "feed" our eyes.
Indonesian people introduced to the audience the captivating Tari Kecak dance, also called ‘the monkey chant dance'. It began as a storytelling but then turned into a real chanting ceremony that quickly escalated to what seemed to be totally random movements and dances and..pretty fun to engage in I must say! The Kecak dance is unique in that it has no other musical background or accompaniment besides the chanting of the dancers, intoning a “keh-chack” polyrhythmic choir during most of the performance.
Later on during the day, they came back to the stage with traditional Indonesian music. The instruments are made of bamboo and they are called Calung and Anglung. What amazed me is the strange way people played the Calung - instead of using some kind of sticks, they just shook the instrument and it reproduced the music sound...
There were also Indonesian Batik lessons (Batik is a technique of wax-resist dyeing applied to whole cloth, or cloth made using this technique) and well, I didn't stay there for too long because I was busy running around to caprture everything, but some of the people trying it out seemed to do a pretty good job. Definetely a catchy craft if you are skilled with your hands (obviously not for me).
South Korea introduced both its modern and traditional side. K-pop is pretty popular anyway and it has it's separate events, so I'd like to focus on the more appealing side of Korean culture for me. On the stage, they performed Samul nori (사물놀이) which I also had the chance to see the day before on another festival, dedicated to Korean culture. The first time I heard the music I was confused, I wasn't sure if that can actually be called music (sorry!) but the more I listened, the more I "fell in the trap" of the sounds and felt like I was hypnotized. So, the second day, on the Asian Festival, I was fully prepared of what to expect and I enjoyed the performance on 100%!
So, what is Samul nori? That is a genre of percussion music. The word samul means "four objects" and nori means "play"; so samul nori is performed with four traditional Korean musical instruments: kkwaenggwari (a small gong), jing (a larger gong), janggu (an hourglass-shaped drum) and buk (a barrel drum similar to the bass drum).
Along with the musical performance there was sangmo ribbon dancing!
(some of the photos are from the day before too)
On the other hand, in the Korean hut, everybody had the chance to try on Korean Hanbok, get closer to the Korean literature and taste some typical Korean flavours!
Okay, this post is getting too long and I have a lot more to tell, so I'm going to stop myself here for now. Hope I set a sparkle to your curiosity and widened your horizons at least.. a little?!
See you in part 2!