We Won the Grand Prize at Story Telling Contest

Well, who would've expected that we won the grand prize of story telling contest (4회 세계동화구연)competing with other fellow contestants from other countries? It was such a thrilling experience. 

Ok, we started off by showing Indonesian folktale called "Timun Emas" or 'Golden Cucumber' or in Korean "황금 오이".

Even, we got ourselves on one page review of Jesoen Ilbo 조선일보 the Children section.

(See our video on YouTube below)

This has been a great memory for all of us to be involved in such an event.

The story goes something like any other folktales where magical creatures in this case: monster called Buto Ijo or green ogre came to grant a wish of a woman (called Mbok Srini) who wished to have a daughter. He did give her a promise of giving her a small child born out of a cucumber seed. ..with a terrible price..that he would come back when the child ( a girl ) turned  7 and the mother had to give her back so as the ogre could eat her...

Appalled by the terrible consequences, she asked for help from a holy man who then gave her four pockets of cucumber seed, needles, salt, and shrimp paste. 

Upon the visit of the Buto Ijo, Mbok Srini asked her daughter (Golden Cucumber) to run away and fight the Buto Ijo by throwing each pocket one at a time until she could finally defeat the Ogre.

....... 

Once again, teamed up with my wife, two daughters (Meity, Eyra, and Freya)... and my friend and his wife (Wawan and Ulfa), we managed to represent Indonesia in this 4th installment of world folktale story telling contest held in Dongdaemun, Seoul.

Worth to remember? Indeed. 

Land of FolktalesThis is....

Korea like any other countries has lots of folktales of its own. So many that it would be hard to keep up with the numerous genres it offers. Yet, out of those seemingly countless folktales that it has, some famous and worth-knowing are right here being displayed through the life-size statues scattered on the land of folktales.  

I can't remember what and which ones they were. But, the one I took a picture of right here was about a naughty green frog that seemed to disobey his mother all of his life. He always did opposite of what his mother frog asked him to. Knowing the fact that his son always disobeyed her, one day the mother frog told him that should she be dead someday, she would love to be buried right at the side of the riverbank--hoping that her son would do the otherwise, i.e. burying her on the hills. 

But, as it turned out, on the day his mother died, he said that he had been disobeying his mother for all of his life that for once only he would do as his mother asked him to. 

So, instead of burying his mother on the hill, he buried his mother at the riverbank.

As the night fell and the rain fell heavily, the tomb of his mother at the riverbank was swept away...

He wept....

Eyra insisted on riding a bull. Good thing, that it was just a bronze statue.

This folktale is somewhat similar to what 'Jaka Tarub dan 7 Bidadari 'Jaka Tarub and 7 Angels' is in Indonesia. Well, to some extent it hos some similar intrinsic elements in it. As for Korea, it is known as 'the The woodcutter and heavenly maiden' 

The difference is that...finally the maiden or the angle brought along her children with her to the sky and left the woodcutter alone. While the one in Indonesia had it the other way around, the angel left the man and the baby on earth. 

Quite an interesting ending, right?

Let's see what folktale are we in now....!

wait, this is not folktale! what are these folks doing right here? I think ...they look like Avatar. Indeed, they were. I guess..this was just a gimmick to attract the curiosity of the visitors so as they trod along their steps and go into the folktales lands.

Well, we might as well take a token of remembrance right in front of the seemingly out-of-place story in the land of folktales, right? 

Or maybe they are actually at different places, it's just that I could not differentiate the fences that might separate the two colliding worlds apart?