Apparently Children's Day does involve celebrations. Saturday afternoon I went to InAe's apartment where all the grandchildren and two of the sets of parents came together to celebrate. (InSook's older son had just returned from a vacation so he and his wife elected to stay home while InSook brought their girls; InAe's son Sang-kyun and his wife were in Japan for a few days for a vacation.)
The five girls from three families were joined this
year by a boy. InAe's daughter produced a son, and he will certainly be spoiled! He is very cute, of course.
We had a brief worship service of thanksgiving for the children with participation by all three grandma's (I was an honorary one).
Then we ate.
Because it had been HoSun's birthday a few days previously, there was a cake. But the girls had all the fun blowing out the candles.
Grandmas InSook and InAe gave cute outfits to each of the girls as gifts. Of course, they had to rush to try them on and have a fashion show. Esther, the eldest, looked quite "with it" in her new clothes. They also played a bit, creating bubbles which I thought made a great crown -- for me!
I had to leave in order to meet YoungIl to attend the opening event of the HiSeoul Festival, the Hot Pink Parade. There were an amazing number of police at the subway exits. It seemed to be overkill for a parade, even for Korea. Then YoungIl told me that there were threats of major protests against the government by unions as a continuation of the previous day's Labor Day events.
The beginning of the parade was delayed as the protesters blocked the starting point. And it was stopped several times after it began as protesters surged and blocked progress. Although I have no problem with the protesters wanting to take advantage of the crowds and the possibility of publicity by being there, I think it is too bad ("mean" as YoungIl put it) to disrupt an event on which organizers and participants have put in such a lot of time.
The parade was nowhere near as long or as elaborate as the Lantern Festival parade. There were several drumming groups, one quite large and made up, I think, of members from a variety of pungmulnori groups. They carried out the "hot pink" theme by wearing pink rather than the usual white "poofs." There were several groups of rather strangely-dressed participants; I'm not sure what they were supposed to be.
There were no floats, but the basis of the "hot pink" theme was made clear as a group of about 20 Mary Kay cars topped with balloons in several shades of pink ended the parade. Apparently Mary Kay is a primary sponsor of the spring HiSeoul Festival. A few pictures of the parade follow.
The first picture shows a black blur. That was the police in their black storm trooper attire and carrying protective shields running by very quickly, and yelling as they went, as they tried to reach the protesters. YoungIl told me that the black-attired police are a separate force consisting of young men who opt to meet their military obligation by joining this branch of the police. They seem to spend a lot of time sitting around and waiting for something to happen.
As the parade ended with the Mary Kay cars, we returned to City Hall plaza to see what was happening.
When the rock version of Scotland the Brave with heavy beat was blasted through the speakers, the crowd joined in clapping and apparently enjoying. But every time the music stopped the demonstrators, who had filled the plaza for their candlelight vigil, began chanting their slogans and waving their flags, preventing the scheduled program from happening.
So YoungIl and I gave up, taking a last look at the decorated plaza as we departed.
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