Amongst the varied performances was a flute solo.

To complete this week's theme of 'just go with it', I present a topic suggested by my roommate Jacob.  I've already talked about other performances by campus musical groups - mostly rock bands - in other blogs.  I even had the opportunity to go to performances by Igneous, the SCH orchestra and plays by the Theater Arts majors.  But yet another group I learned about through my roommate was part of a performance titled 'Prayers'.  There's a significance to that title that I'll get to in a little bit.  Jacob's a part of an eight-member choir that performed the bulk of the songs at the Prayers 34th Midbar.  When he'd been out later than normal I asked why weeks ago and found out about his involvement with the group, and then promised I'd go to the performance.  And after going this past Tuesday I'm very glad that I did.

Now the significance of the title of 'Prayers' is that the songs performed were all Christian.  This brings up something very notable about South Korea - there's actually a lot of Christians in the population.  Just under a third of the country's population are Christian, most of these being Protestant, though the Catholic population has seen a 70% increase in the past decade.  While I'd known Christianity was popular in Korea, I'd had no idea that there were so many Chrisitians here.  Buddhism is still strong as well, especially in the southeast region of the country where the Silla Kingdom was based.  Silla's emphasis on Buddhism as a state religion has at least something to do with that.  North Korea once had a large Christian population - Pyeongyang was a Catholic center once, if I recall - but with the coming of communism they mostly fled to South Korea.

The performances at the Prayers Midbar included a Christian rock band, a flute solo, and of course Jacob's choral group.  As I mentioned the choral group's songs made up the majority of the concert - and it was here that I finally saw what all those hours of work had been for.  At times there were apparently arguments at the rehearsals over why not everyone was showing up.  Yet when they performed it all came together rather well; the group had not only strong harmony but really started to hit their stride after the first song.  I've been pretty surprised by the level of skill the musical groups on campus display, but that's likely the result of the hours of practice everyone puts in.

More surprising was my roommate's solo performance - I hadn't even known he was going to do something like that.  But Jacob proved to be inredibly talented, more apparent in a solo than when the group performed.  Judging by the audience's reaction it was one of the more popular portions of the concert.  While it doesn't appear so in the pictures there actually were quite a few people present, the auditorium was just rather large as a venue.  More people were in attendance here than at the Igneous concert, I think.  And all seemed to be Christian - some even shouting 'Amen!' after each song.  Those who follow this faith in Korea can be just as passionate as those anywhere else in the world it seems. 

If I hadn't found out about this from my roommate I never would have known it was occuring save possibly for posters around campus.  Just goes to show you that you'll find things to do by making friends here - things you otherwise wouldn't necessarily know about.  That said I really enjoyed myself and I believe it'll be one of the many really good memories of Korea when I return to America.  This is partly because I was apparenlty the first foreigner they'd invited to the concert, and was the first to attend as well.  As such I even ended up in a couple of the group pictures!  That was pretty cool, to be involved in the perfomance in that kind of way.  Not something I've ever experienced before, and as I said one of the highlights of my time at SoonChunHyang University.  So let this be another lesson to you: if you come to Korea, meet people, try lots of things and don't be afraid to do things other than what the majority of people are doing!  You won't regret it.

The whole group, with me right in the back alongside my roommate Jacob.