Not to be confused with that time I accidentally set fire to my downtown Montréal apartment in fall 2013 because that's a whole dark, different story.
In fall 2015 I moved to the Korea of the South (Hangeuk, as called by the locals) for about a year and while it had its ups and downs, I can honestly say there was never a dull moment. Koreans have a lot of random festivals to take part in, they love to travel around the country so transportation/exploration is very affordable and the nightlife is amazing since they also tend to need to let off steam after work by partying hard.
Issues with my hagwon (a private teaching academy) aside, I thoroughly enjoyed my time there. The people were friendly and there was always something to do in my city or in the next, from watching the sea part in Jindo to dancing on the beaches of Busan for Holi Hai.
Still, if there was one experience that has always stuck with me it was this one, watching a behemoth burn as fire and smoke danced off its back and into the misty night sky. Not because I had every right to be afraid of fire, of which I've already survived four including the one previously mentioned, but because I wasn't for once. It was fun. Dangerous, even. And oh so Korean. How exactly did the Koreans of Jeju Island get the idea to set their lands ablaze while in a drunken stupor every year around March?
Probably not like this.
Actually, it began with luck, you see. Warding off bad luck, specifically.
Finding its origins in “Bangae” (the cultural island tradtion of villages burning their pastures to kill old grass and pests between late winter and early spring), the annual fire festival’s mission is to get rid of the year’s bad luck while wishing good luck to everyone else. Lasting three days, the first day begins with prayers for the coming harvest and then a Dalip (moon house) building competition, which continues to the second day along with fireworks, a multimedia art exhibition, choreographed jousting and more, culminating in the torch parade on the third day that leads to the burning of the mountainside and the Dalips on top of it.
Some of the more modest statues in Loveland.
I missed the first two days of the festival because I originally went as part of a tour to Jeju Island, a lush hotbed of tourism to the south of the nation that sported walkable lava tunnels from its long-dormant volcano, Loveland (a NSFW theme park that you can look up at your own discretion) and the only waterfall in all of Asia that lets out into the ocean. The tour was advertised as such by a local tour group that catered to foreigners of all backgrounds and, for 380,000₩, it included the flights from Seoul to Jeju and back, accomodation in pensions (shared apartments) and transportation around the island, as well as the bilingual tour guides and compted breakfast/dinner (alcohol not included).
For any foreigners living abroad there at the moment, tour groups such as Enjoy Korea, WinK and Adventure Korea, specialize in such excursions at affordable rates and I did enough trips with all of them to account for their usual reliability. I went on this particular extravaganza with a South African friend who was also teaching in my city and by the end of the first day our pair had become five girls, with two more Canadians and a half-Korean-American joining us, all friends from before who’d come on the trip together. There were about eighty other people on the tour (we’d taken up almost the entire plane to get there!) from different walks of life, from a Japanese girl who was working in banking in the capital and a few Kyopos (foreigners of Korean descent), so it was safe to say these agencies cater to just about anyone and it’s pretty easy to make friends even while flying solo.
View of cliffs from Songkasan mountain
We made merry for the first two days, ate local food, schmoozed, watched water run uphill on Dokkaebi Road (it’s a thing, look it up), walked through lava tunnels the size of metro platforms, played around Loveland and hiked to the peak of Songaksan Mountain, one of the windiest mountaintops I’ve ever been to, where ropes had been specially placed to keep unwitting tourists from blowing off. That climb had been tough, with resuscitation kits built into the side of the carved mountain trail in case anyone suffered cardiac arrest on the way up (seriously) but our group could only stand the battering at the top for about fifteen minutes before we made our way back down for that night’s festivities. We also visited the cliffs of Daepo Haean Jusangjeolli, hexagonal structures formed from the running of lava straight into the churning sea below, and while it was possible to journey down its jagged face to the edge, our group elected to safely view it from afar.
On day three of the fire festival the Deumdol lifting contest is held where contestants compete against each other by seeing who can carry a heavy stone the furthest. Apparently there was a time when a few of the competitions were closed to foreigners but while I was there I saw plenty of waegukin parting in the spoils. It was slightly drizzling that afternoon, a change from the morning’s drier weather, but that didn’t stop a burly Englishman among our tour group from getting his hands dirty when he turned out to be the winner of the only complete competition we stayed to wait at that area of the festival. There was also tug-o-war wrestling in the muddy rainwater but we were eventually more attracted to the booze tent, which served delicious, hot food to ward off the cold from the damp weather, and cheap bottles of soju (Korean rice liquor), makgeolli (another milkier Korean rice liquor) and maekju (Korean for beer). South Korea has no laws against open containers so it’s legal to drink anywhere in the country at any time (perks) but the huge tent was the warmest area and therefore packed.
View of Daepo Haean Jusangjeolli Cliff
As one of our own was half-Korean and spoke the language fairly well for being raised in the US, the table of Koreans next to us became enamored with her and preceded to buy our table rounds to match theirs, no matter how much we (half-heartedly) refused their kindness. Koreans tend to be quite generous so it’s not unheard of to see this happen (case in point when I met a Korean businessman in a bar while backing across Laos half a year later who also preceded to buy me and all the travel companions at my table a few rounds of beers just because he found out I could speak a little Hangul.) A lot of food, bottles and laughs later and next thing we knew where we were being rounded up by our tour guides and being handed full-on lit torches as if we were planning a 17th century mob.
It was time to light the mountain! All while swaying on our feet. Heavily. Among about about a few thousand more souls doing the same.
This was either going to be amazing or terrifying but I was too swept up in the moment to let myself think twice about it. Between trying to keep my balance on the slippery ground, balancing the large fire stick in my right hand and trying not to bump into anyone, I immediately lost the entire group but it didn’t seem to matter. The moment that this had all been leading up to and we’d all been waiting for was here.
The drizzle was heavier now, more like rain, but, with all the kerosene soaked into their clothes, the torches were resilient and barely sputtered against the now darkness of the night. They lead us to encircle the mountain an almost all sides, its surface dark and lumpy from all the Daplips built onto it hidden by the gloom, and we stopped about twenty meters back behind a roped off area. Silence was called for and then a signal given: throw! I was relieved when I wasn’t the only one who hesitated in my section of the crowd as the same thought seemed to cross a lot of people’s minds: how do throw a torch without setting one’s self alight, let alone anyone else for that matter, all without missing the target?
Smoke mingling into the air as Daplips alight and sizzle against the rain.
A guy to my right had the idea to take a step back and spear-chuck his torch upward at the mountain, an errant burning arrow that made it a good way up before it embedded itself into the mountainside. That section immediately went up in flames, making the mountain’s outline against the murky night a bit more defined, and that realization seemed to break the tension. Torches went flying to the left and right of me, some a little too low and only further lighting the base of the mountain but most found their marks. I took my time with mine since I typically have little to no upper-body strength but what I lacked in muscle I tried to make up for ingenuity. Many people had begun to wander off to drier pastures from having already thrown their torches, giving me more space to work with so I took advantage before giving myself a running start and chucking it. I followed through with my hips and as I watched my torch sailed up and away into the night enough so that it was engulfed in flames about a quarter-way up the four-story mountain.
Feeling like quarterback, I turned away to suddenly run into my South African friend and soon after the rest of the group, all giddy from the fire glowing in our eyes. The rain was coming down hard now but the inferno that had swallowed the mountain seemed undaunted, continuing to burn away as it smoked in places wherever water met flame.
Basically felt like this.
Between the heat coming off the mountain and all the rain by that point we were all wet in the most uncomfortable places despite our locally-purchased raincoats. We decided to make our way back to the shelter of the tour bus which turned out to be easier said than done because the parking lot had been filled with dozens upon dozens of them, all nearly identical.
The air was thick with smoke now, everything gone whitish-gray except for the crackling red hulk behind us and strangers moved past us through the ever-frolicking masses, their movements stirring the haze like phantoms. Thanks to the keen senses of our Korean-American friend (surprisingly the most sober among us) we eventually made it back to the bus but I couldn’t help staring out the window toward the delightful chaos we were leaving behind.
Last look from a distance of the mountain completely engulfed in flames.
I imagine that fire raged well into the night, burning away everyone’s bad luck to bring on the start of better things, using its awe-inspiring destruction for good. For once, for me who had already survived four other fires to be reborn on the other side of the world, I like imagine it really, really did.
May you get lost in the wonder,
M