Christmas in Seoul // Nadal a Seül

I'm dreaming of a whiteeee christmas... bé, tinc dues notícies: una bona i una de dolenta (per mi). La bona és que al Nadal, aquí també tindré festa. La dolenta és que ja em puc oblidar del caga tió, del Reis Mags, del Sant Esteve i dels canelons de la meva àvia. Crec que està clar que hi surto perdent.

Però exactament com celebren el Nadal els coreans?

En primer lloc hauríem d'aclarir que a Corea, actualment hi ha dues religions majoritàries: el budisme (més o menys un 23% de la població)i el cristianisme, que inclou protestants (un 20%) i catòlics (un 10%). Aproximadament la meitat dels coreans es consideren ateus.

Dit això veiem que no hi ha gaires raons per les quals els coreans haurien de celebrar el Nadal. No és la seva tradició, i tot aquest elevat percentatge de coreans cristians és un fenomen relativament recent. Però ai! L'encant dels carrers il·luminats, dels regalets... i sobretot l'encant de que deuen gaudir els centres comercials i els grans magatzems al veure tanta gent comprant, fa molt. Així que, encara que en menor mesura que allà Barcelona, aquí la gent més o menys també celebra el Nadal, però a la seva manera.

Com que els universitaris ja han acabat l'any escolar (aquí va diferent la cosa), i la gent d'una certa posició en les empreses també tenen festa, molta gent aprofita per anar-se'n de vacances fora. Es veu que divendres passat l'aeroport internacional estava totalment ple de gent. Suposo que la imatge debia ser semblant a el Prat a l'agost, però amb la diferència de que l'aeroport internacional d'Inchon és un dels més grans del món.

 Però anem a lo que interessa! Quina pinta té Seül durant el Nadal? Doncs més o menys la mateixa, amb la diferència de les zones comercials. Aquí no fan com a Barcelona i omplen els carrers de llum perquè sí, així que la majoria de carrers estan igual, però els grans magatzems posen lluminàries d'ensomni, i les botigues posen motius nadalencs per tot arreu.
Aquí tenim unes fotos dels grans magatzems Lotte.

Maco eh?
La veritat és que era impressionant, i molt, molt gran.

Prop de casa meva hi ha un dels carrers comercials més famosos de Seül, anomenat Myongdong (sí, he triat bé eh?). Evidentment, com que és una zona comercial, el Nadal és un tema que cal potenciar, així que per tot arreu s'hi veuen arbres de Nadal així de monos.

I sorpresa, el dia 21 feien una festa al carrer, en plan disco, amb dj i llums. Impressionant! Aquí us deixo un petit video que mostra l'ambient.

Si una cosa admiro dels coreans són les seves ganes i predisposició de passar-s'ho bé. Allà al mig del carrer, amb l'omnipresent fred, tothom saltant i ballant tan feliços i els dj en MÀNIGA CURTA animant l'ambient.Ole vosaltres nois!

Una altra cosa que també crea esperit nadalenc i que sembla que s'ha posat de moda a totes les ciutats en els últims anys és fer una pista de gel en algun lloc important de la ciutat. Si fins i tot en vam posar una a Barcelona, Seül no podia ser menys! 

La única diferència que hi veig entre una pista i l'altra és que crec que aquesta la debien fer per accident. Resulta que aquesta plaça de davant de l'ajuntament ( o city hall, com està anunciat en anglès per tot arreu) és la part més freda de Seül. Els coreans diuen que potser és algo relacionat amb el feng-sui. Jo dic que és una caca de lloc i prou. El tema és que amb aquest fred se'ls debia caure aigua o alguna cosa i va quedar automàticament glaçada. Veieu que no hi ha cap carpa ni res? A Barcelona en canvi, com que fa calor hem hagut de posar una carpa i climatització 24h... potser estem forçant alguna cosa no us sembla?

Però si una cosa m'agrada de les tradicions inventades són coses com aquesta: PASTISSOS DE NADAL

Aquestes monades són pastissos sí sí! Amés ja venen en porcions llestos per consumir sense espatllar lo monos que són al tallar-los. Ho tenen tot pensat aquesta gent!

Una altra cosa que s'agraeix és que a la tele no els bombardegen amb anuncis de joguines i perfums a cada moment. No és que la miri gaire per... dificultats lingüístiques diguem, però mirant-la vaig trobar a faltar algo i em vaig donar compte que era això!! On estan els anuncis de playmobils?? I de channel n5?? Vull tornar a casa...

I per últim, està clar que aquí no passen el Nadal en família. Bé, potser aquell 10% de catòlics que mencionava abans ho fa, però per la resta, és només un dia festiu sense gaire importància, així que si vols quedar amb els amics o anar-te'n por ahí, pots fer-ho sense remordiments.

Així que aquest any intentaré fer canelons aquí, ja vorem com sortiran. Si no penjo cap foto és perquè no me'ls he pogut ni menjar.

I bé, com a conclusió, per una banda és clar que m'agrada que aquí celebrin el Nadal, perquè això et va no enyorar tant el meu estimat caga tió, i cantar nadales ( per cert, he comentat que tinc una esglèsia al costat i que m'he llevat la última setmana sentint els veïns cantant nadales amb veu angelical?). Però per l'altra veig que Mr USA ha influenciat molt la cultura (d'altra banda prou consumista de per sí) d'aquest país. No és una queixa, però sóc partidaria de que cadascú conservi les seves tradicions. Però igual que ens està passant amb el Halloween a Catalunya, aquí a la gent li agrada celebrar coses, i una festa és una festa! Així que ja teniu a tots els coreans comprant un pastís per Nadal (--').

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I'm dreaming of a whiteeee christmas... well, I have some news: something good and something bad. Good thing: here Christmas is holiday! The bad thing, I can forget about my beloved Catalan&Spanish traditions: Caga tió, Magic Kings, Saint Steven and my grandmothers canelonni.

To explain a little about that, the first one is a Catalan tradition. In every rightfull Catalan home we have this super cute thing:

Yes, it's a trunk. But the thing is it's a magic trunk! We call it tió, which means... trunk. We catalans are a very practical people as you can see. The night of the 24th (some people do this the morning of the 25th) we cover our Tió with a blanket and kids go to warm some wooden sticks (because we don't have sticks in my home my poor grandpa's walking stick is always very useful, to his despair). And while kids go to warm their sticks the parents, uncles and grandparents put presents...well no, t's magic! So when the kids return they literally hit the Tió while singing some songs especially created to this purpose. And then they take off the balnket and oh! surprise, the Tió had shited presents! 

 

One thing I have to make clear. We catalans are a group of scatological people. Some of our beloved traditions consist in making a trunk shit presents, putting a man shitting in the crèche (or also called the representation of the nativity of Jesus) and making lots of stupid jokes about shits and farts. Yes we are like this...
 

The image of the nativity of Jesus was too bucolic for our taste, so all Catalan families put a Caganer (which means literallly "person who shits") in our "Pessebres". 

 

But let's stop talking about shits and continue talking about presents. The 5th of January during the night, the three Magic Kings from orient (maybe they are Korean??) come to give presents to the children who had behaved correctly during all the year. It sounds like Santa Claus, and actually the concept is exactly the same. But originally we don't celebrate Santa Claus but the 3 magic kings. And you can't find any shit/scatologic thing in this tradition right? Yes, that's because it's not only a Catalan tradition but also Spanish (it seems we are the only ones with this kind of mocking humor). 

And finally we have our family meals. We usually don't meet with family that much during the year, but in Christmas we meet a lot. For Christmas' Eve, for Christmas, for Saint Steven, for new year, and for the magic kings' day. And this obviously ends up with a lot of familiar love and.... fights. Because we all have this uncle which we can't stand. And nature is wise. If you don't meet someone during all the year, why on the earth it's suposed to be a good idea to meet that person during lots of days in a row?





 But let's stop talking about Catalan Christmas and talk about Korean Christmas.

In Korea they have two major religions: christians (30% counting both catholic and just christians) and buddist (22%). So half of the population declare themselves atheistic.

So, why on earth should koreans celebrate Christmas? It's not their tradition, and actually all this high percentage of christians is a quite new phenomenon. But... aish (sigh)... the lovely view of the streets with christmas lights, the presents... and the delight of the department stores and malls who regard Christmas as a potentially good season for selling, it's obviously enough. 
 

So people here celebrate Christmas, but in their own way. 

The university students had just finished their year, and the workers of companies have vacation, so a lot of people use this holidays for travelling somewhere. It seems last friday, in the international airport of Sinchon, it was madness. Similar to our airport in barcelona during august, but with the small difference that this is one of the biggest airports in the world.

But first things first! How does Seoul look like during Christmas? Well, more or less exactly the same. The difference lays on the comercial areas. In Barcelona we put lights everywhere during Christmas. (When I say everywhere it means literally everywhere. I even saw lights in public restrooms). But I'm big fan of the department store's luminaria.

It is Lotte Department Store's AMAZING christmas decoration. For more photos go up on the Catalan part of the post. SO SO SO beautiful. It's amazing how koreans can make everything better than us, even if it's suposed to be our tradition. 


But I'm sorry koreans, you don't have this

Part of the Barcelona's decoration for Christmas. A giant "galet". A galet is some giant pasta we put in Christmas' broth. So in barcelona they made this fantastic decoration light!

 

And talking about comercial areas, I live quite near to Myongdong, one of the most famous spots for shopping in Seoul (I chose correctly, I know). It's also super nicely decorated with Christmas trees and lights everywhere (plz, check the photos up). And last 21th they were making a party just there, in the middle of the street, with dj's and everything. Another astonishing thing about the koreans is how much they like to have fun and how they enjoy parties. It was so cold that day, at 10'30pm in the middle of the street... but people were there dancing and enjoying, and the dj's were wearing SHORT SLEEVE T-SHIRTS but they were doing their best! And it was so amazing! I loved it!

 

And there's a thing that seems it's kind of a worldwide fashion in cities on this christmas days. Yes, I'm talking about ice-skating rings. In barcelona we have our own version of the thing, with a canopy covering it. (I heard that yesterday they were enjoying some perfect temperature of 20 celsius degrees...). So maybe the only difference is that the ice-skating ring in Seoul was made by accident. Someone dropped some water and it got frozen perhaps? My question is... is really necessary to spend that much energy in Barcelona for a skating ring with our weather? Seoul 1-  Barcelona 0.

Another thing I find so cute about Christmas in Korea are the Christmas cakes. Yes, yes, check the photo... cakes! So cute cakes. We usually eat turrón but never cakes there. This is one of the good thing of inventing traditions, you can also invent what to eat during this invented traditions. So why not? Cute cakes for dinner! 

Last thing: they don't have to suffer annoying advertisements in TV about perfumes and toys...how lucky they are. It's not that I watch TV a lot (because of some....mmm...linguistic problems, I would say?) but when I did, I missed something. And yes, it was the advertisements. I want to return home...

As a summary I think Mr USA had influenced a lot this country and its traditions but... why not? Everyone loves parties, and the world its smaller now, so let's share parties. I stubbornly believe that every country has to keep their own traditions, but it's just people like happines. And they are not replacing any party they had before so it's ok. But as a piece of advice, please, if you want to take a new tradition, take the good things, not our bad things. Christmas is about being with family, and yes, some little presents, but the important part is something we also have lost. The christmas spirit of trying to be better people for a while. Maybe we can do this all together, but we should keep the department stores out of our party. (But I also want a present eh?)