Spirit Week: A Korean Folk Tale

The last week of May was "Spirit Week" at David and Elisabeth's school (a 12-grade, mostly-English-speaking, Christian school that's happily located below our apartment balcony), and instead of having "pajama day" or "wear your clothes backwards day" like I remember from homecoming weeks of my youth, these folks do it up right. For example, Tuesday was Korea Day: many kids wore gorgeous traditional clothing and a school-wide lecture was given about Korea. 

I caught two of Elisabeth's friends (a Korean-Canadian and a Korean-American)
and some high school boys dressed in hanbok playing soccer before school;
the lecture hall was filled with Korean heads, making it easy whenever I need to find my red-heads.

After the lecture, the school's international faculty (from the US, Canada, China, and New Guinea) enacted a traditional Korean folk story; David and Elisabeth were also required to participate by their Korean teacher (let's just say that Elisabeth was less unhappy than David about this).  I suspect the single rehearsal, held the previous afternoon, contributed to the near-slapstick acting style.  In addition, none of the actors is a native Korean speaker, so the audience (who knew the story well) had a GREAT time laughing at the delightful old tale told in truly terrible Korean.  I enjoyed the audience nearly as much as the play. 

So here's the story, as I picked up from the skit, the powerpoint slides, and my faithful assistant, Wikipedia (note: several of these pictures were taken by Aleksey Yoo (David's Russian teacher and a member of our church).

A wise old father divides his estate between his two adult sons, realizing that the evil/crafty Nolbu would otherwise leave nothing for kind Heungbu.  However, after the father's (over-the-top, butt-in-the-air) death, the greedy Nolbu steals his brother's inheritance, leaving his family destitute (thus the plain-spun hanbok rather than the bright silky clothing).

The father wisely divides his estate between his sons, dies,
and one brother still gets screwed by the other.  

Poor Heungbu's family (including Elisabeth as wife and David as child) beg for help from Nolbu's wife.  At first she gives them a small pittance, but when Heungbu returns to beg for more, she beats him and chases him away.  

I love David's look of surprise when Nolbu's wife whacks Heungbu.

Later, Heungbu notices a swallow (inexplicably dressed as a penguin in this production) with a broken leg; his family cares for the bird until it is well, when it gratefully brings them a seed that grows into a huge gourd.  When the gourd is opened (by a surprisingly sturdy cardboard saw), it is filled with riches and the family is in need of nothing.

This Canadian was a highly demonstrative swallow.  Penguin.  Whatever.

The Gourd of Abundance.

Of course, evil brother Nolbu learns of Heungbu's windfall, so he finds the swallow, breaks its leg, then sets it to heal in hopes of similar fortune. When healed, the swallow does give him a seed which produces a huge gourd.  But, when this gourd is opened, it contains not riches but a fierce goblin who beats Nolbu and his wife.  

Nolbu breaks the swallows leg, hoping to be awarded a gourd of riches
but gets a club-wielding goblin instead.

The brothers (inexplicably) reconcile and apparently live happily ever after, giggling their way off the stage.   

The cast returns to take a bow.

P.S. It ends up that the school's version of this tale was fairly tame.  For some alternatives, see these sites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heungbu_and_Nolbu

http://www.tparents.org/Library/Unification/Talks2/Kirkbride/Kirkbride-100629.htm