KOREA HITS IT OUT OF THE PARK, AND THEN BLOWS IT UP


Samantha Iacovetto
As I get older I realize that anything really worth watching should end in a spectacular fireworks display.
I have always been a bit ¡°fireworks obsessed.¡± As a child I perfected the standard ¡°Ooooooo¡¯s¡± and ¡°Aaaaaaahhhh¡¯s¡± required at any American Fourth of July celebration. A few years ago I watched the Macy¡¯s Fourth of July fireworks display live in New York City, and felt certain that I had seen those flashing lights as good as they can get. Then I moved to Busan.


Korea is setting my Fireworks Standards higher and higher.
I guess I have really always thought of fireworks as a fairly American thing. Sure the whole world does them¡¦but as indulgent Americans, we ran with the concept. We like to do them on the Fourth, at Christmas, for New Years, and why waste a good Birthday? We like to sell them on the side of the road, in jumbo packs, in the hot hot sun as cars zoom precariously past. Until now I couldn¡¯t think of many things much more American than fireworks.
Except maybe baseball.
And, of course, leave it to the Koreans to perfect that too.
I can remember being 12 and desperately trying to stay awake at Colorado Rockies games with my family. Baseball games in America meant:
-Helping Dad sneak in a six pack or so in my kiddie backpack
-Playing hand-clapping games with my sister to pass the time
-My brother whining about not catching a ball.
-Really expensive nachos.
-Sitting still. For. Three. Or. Four. Hours. Straight.
A few weeks ago my Korean Co-teacher Seul Hee, English name Kelly, and her boyfriend took my husband Jesse and I on a double date to watch the Lotte Giants murder the I Don't Remember the Other Teams Name But We Killed Them's.
Do you notice how I use the definitive WE? As if I had a part in the Giants win? The thing is, at the Korean baseball game, it really seemed as if I did. At the game I could truly feel that Collective Korean spirit, squashing the individual for the necessary group. I have never been so thrilled to fit in.
We followed the crushing tide of Koreans into the stadium, passing vendors selling tons of Gimbap. Jesse looked at it longingly, but we were certain we would be unable to take things into the stadium. I saw families carrying pizza boxes and liters of soda, and those inevitable cans of beer, and as we made it to the gate I waited for them to stuff those sure-to-be-illegal items into their skinny jeans and designer bags. Just watching I got that nervous guilty feeling in the pit of my stomach. But they strode through the ticket taker lines. Outside food allowed here! The game hadn¡¯t even started yet, and still Korean Baseball took the lead.
There was elation in the air. It smelled like weird hot dogs and squid on a stick, and I was stoked. Almost immediately the songs and chants started. Every player has his own song, and the entire crowd sings along. There are often hand gestures to accompany the catchy tunes, and literally the entire crowd will be singing and moving in a perfectly synchronized way. We did the wave. Then we did the SLOW MOTION wave.
The Giants killed. When the home pitcher hit a rough patch, the new pitcher was dropped off by a car. A car on the field. That DROVE UP to the diamond. Kelly explained, "They are just showing off." When the game wavered (it hardly did...best baseball game I ever did see), the Jumbotron did close-ups of the crowd. Couples were forced to kiss as their images flashed across the screen (old couples got the biggest squeals), the "craziest fans" saw themselves and began to act crazier, and scantily clad girls tried to dance like the provocative Lotte Giants Dancers (strangely enough anytime the professional dancers started doing their thing, my husband got really quiet¡¦and even shushed me a few times).
We were at a Giant Giants party, and it was unreal.
In the stadium Jesse and I stared at the crowd and then at each other. We were astounded by the fun we were having. My cheeks hurt, and my throat was sore and my eyes felt glittery; I think I got some mirth in my eye! Yes, there it was, actual mirth floating in the air. I caught some in the flaming orange trash bag that was passed out to all of us in the 7th inning stretch. This may have been a party, but we were still going to clean up after ourselves when the fun was done. We call this Party, Korean Style. Brilliant! Better still the bags suddenly became fan wear as well. We fashioned them into different hats. Kelly looked like a cat, the young girl in front of us created a Minnie Mouse bow, mine just looked like a trash bag tied onto my head.
We won, of course. We¡¯d worked so hard. And we were rewarded with a gorgeous fireworks display that reflected off of the high-rises surrounding the stadium. The fire glittered like water on glass, and the crowd was finally silenced by the beauty of it. All I saw were lights and smiles, and that¡¯s when Jesse squeezed my hand. We were having an "I Love Korea" moment.
None of this, however, prepared us for the Busan Fireworks Festival.


I believe this year was the first year Busan held the festival for three days in row, a Thursday, Friday and Saturday in the middle of October. We held off for Saturday, as we were told this would be the Grand Finale. Not to be left out of what was sure to be a ¡°pretty cool¡± fireworks display, five friends from nearby Daegu came to Busan to crash with us and join in on the festivities. ¡°Pretty cool,¡± ha.
Our group headed out to Gwangali Beach around 3:30 in the afternoon, assuming that arriving approximately four hours before the fireworks began (at 8pm that evening) would be plenty of time to find a nice spot on the sand and get our picnic on.
As we got closer and closer to the Gwangali stop on the metro, the cars got fuller and fuller. When we got off and I had to stand in a mile-long line for the restroom in the metro station, I finally realized two things:
1.How could I have thought we would be the only ones setting off this early?
2.To draw a crowd this size¡¦this was going to be spectacular.
We snaked our way through the packed streets, and finally got to the beach at 4:30. The excitement was tangible, and even while inevitably getting shuffled about by the crowd, and while desperately searching through the sea of people already cozy on the beach for a spot to call our own, our buzzing anticipation didn¡¯t evaporate. One woman was kind enough to tell us ¡°Waygook seating, go straight, turn right,¡± and then help us out of a mass of pushing people.
Our group hurried down the sidewalk, and miraculously just past the center of the beach was a huge expanse of available sand. I stopped and looked around, sure this huge space must be reserved or have a lousy view or something. But the line of sight to the bridge and of the boats holding the fireworks could not have been more perfect. Jesse yelled, ¡°Get it!¡± and we hurried to lay out our mats and food to mark our piece of the beach. Within in minutes, we were surrounded. I couldn¡¯t believe our luck.
The four hour wait flew by with the help of the vendors and the extra time we had for potty breaks (which is key when you come next year¡¦give yourself time to get through those crowds!). Suddenly it was 8pm. I felt like that little kid again, gearing up to shout my approval.
Vocally, I ended up saying very little. My senses were so completely assaulted the most I could muster was my jaw hanging to the ground and my hands clapping my cheeks in shock every now and then. There is picture proof of this.
The Busan Fireworks Festival is an hour long Fireworks EXTRAVANGANZA. There are truly no adjectives brilliant enough to describe what we watched that night. Golden fireworks the likes of which I have never seen before collided in the sky, and delicately floated through the air to land and burn on the still water below. The bridge was a perfect backdrop to the explosion of rainbows, the waterfall of fire that fell from beneath it, and the shower of lights shimmering against the black night.
In Korea, it seems my ¡°Oooooo¡¯s¡± and ¡°Aaaahhh¡¯s¡± just don¡¯t cut it.