Last week, Wednesday through Friday was the annual AKARAKA festival (아카라카 축제) on campus. Since the start of this term, it has been an event I have been looking forward to, especially after the cheering orientation (you can read more about it here). I can say that every Yonsei student highly anticipates for this event, even students from other campuses do (many students from Korea University came to Akaraka). In Korea, their Spring term is their first term of the year, so Akaraka has been a traditional cheering event, and it usually happens to land following the end of midterm week, which calls for a massive celebration.

It was a huge event alright. I actually didn't know this event was three-day long because for the longest time I thought Akaraka only referred to the cheering event at the amphitheater on the last day where celebrity guests are invited to perform. That is one major reason why so many students compete and claim their Akaraka tickets, because for the price of 10000won ($10), you pretty much receive a line up of singers (unknown until the event starts), and a party full of proud fellow students dancing, singing, and cheering for their favorite artists and of course, one another.

Lets start on Wednesday. 

So one of my friends in my Korean class had told me she was part of the IYC food festival. I decided to help out the day of as I wasn't able to commit to the meetings they had. We were assigned Saudi Arabia and we made Saudi Arabian style fried rice and chicken. It was similar to curry and rice, but with more seasoning and flavors. Our group leader, a Korean, had actually contacted the Saudi Arabian embassy and they provided us with more than we asked for, giving us packages of dates, pamphlets, books,  traditional costumes,a large flag for decoration, contacting a Saudi Arabian international student studying on campus to lend us a hand, and even contacting a restaurant which provided 20 boxes of the dish we made-for free! However, our version of the dish was tastier than the ones provided by the restaurant since we made our own sauce from scratch and our rice wasn't bland tasting like theirs was.

It was a great experience to be part this cooking event and share the taste, sight, and smell of culture with exchange and local students on campus. Koreans don't usually get the opportunity to try food from other countries as there aren't much options available and foreign food tends to be more expensive, and secondly they tend to just stick with what they know best, Korean food.


 Moving on to Thursday.

 

This day was called out to be a day of missing classes, standing in line, and waiting. Most, if not all local students had already had their chance in obtaining their Akaraka tickets. Unfortunately for us exchange students, we had to wait in line to buy ours today at a certain time. We were told there was only 220 available tickets and keeping in mind that there were over 400 exchange students this term, this seemed to be quite a problem. We were forewarned in advance via email that not everyone was going to get a ticket, and that last year, those students who waited two hours earlier, didn't get a ticket either. So even though the time set for us to buy tickets was at 7pm, my friends and I were already lurking around the area at 1pm. Actually, other exchange students were too, just that no line was formed yet. We ended up being part of the first few students at the front of the line, and thank Global Lounge that after three hours of waiting in line, they decided to pass out numbers so we could do leave and come back at 7pm to pay for our actual tickets.Waiting wasn't actually that bad though. Time passed pretty quickly as we took turns exploring the booths, activities, and food stalls all lined up on the main street from main gate of Yonsei.

Prior to lining up again to pay for my real ticket, I grabbed grub at one of the food stalls, a giant $5 seafood pancake and took a look at everything going on. There was a LOT going on. Everywhere I looked, I would see someone singing, performing, playing drinking games, eating, getting freebies from sponsors, etc. There was rows and rows of tables set up (aka inverted boxes) and people sat around them drinking soju, eating snacks, and playing drinking games. It was quite a sight, everyone was so happy and crazy. It felt like the whole Sinchon had displaced itself into the heart of Yonsei haha. It didn't feel like it was a school setting at all. When it got later, Mentor's club had organized an outdoor party for exchange students right by Global Lounge. Their theme was 'MIB', Mentor's in Black and it was so amusing to see all these mentors in black with their black shades and water guns dancing around... oh Koreans.

 

John Park, apparently an American Idol contestant turned famous American Korean singer in Korea after being on a Korean show,  sang on a stage set up in the "forest" on the way back heading to dorms. The energy was crazy and the lighting from the concert took my breathe away as I gazed around me to see the trees lighted up in a beautiful array of colours against the night sky.


The day we've all been waiting for.

Heading towards the amphitheater at 2pm,  lines were already formed and making their way in. Earlier in the term, each department/faculty had already divided up the amphitheater into sections and had drawn out of a hat where they were to  be situated during the event. Mentor's club had designated seating at the top and center section of the theater, but it was a tad far up for our liking, so we joined our other friends who had squished in with the nursing faculty towards the right and middle side of the stage. We ran into some trouble as the nurses weren't too happy that we were sitting there... though there was an unwritten rule that if students from the faculty didn't take their seats by 3:30pm, anyone can sit there, and it was just a few minutes prior to 3:30.

Anyhow, fast forward and the show began with rappers that I do not know the name of opening the stage. Most of the artists seemed to be of the older generation, like our equivalent of Backstreet Boys. When Psy from YG came out thought, the crowd went crazy. I never heard of Psy before due to my lack of Kpop knowledge, but wow does he have energy for a 40+ year old. His singing and dancing got the crowd asking him to encore at least three times. The most well known band must have been SNSD, and  even though only 3/9 members performed, they tried much harder than when I first saw them at Fashion Collection (read here).

Besides the celebrities, Miss Korea was one of our MCs of the night, you know your an Ivy League school when haha. Yonsei also had their version of a singing contest, Yonsei Idol, where the top 3 finalists performed solo and as a group. The winner was revealed later on that night and he totally deserved it as his voice was so strong and beautiful. Also, something that took everyone by surprise was that an alumni from Yonsei made a video of how he met his girlfriend back in the day and when the video ended, the MCs brought him and his girlfriend out and he proposed to her in front of the  crowd of squealing girls and guys shouting "KISS". How sweet is that? That just brought proposal ideas to a whole new creative level.

At about 8 or 9pm (I think, lost track of time), fireworks lighted up the sky (whattt!) and this crazy green light show was projected onto the stage showcasing a moving eagle (Yonsei's mascot), the words "YONSEI" itself and other pretty cool stuff. I thought it was the opening of a crazy popular band such as Big Bang or something to end off the night (as rumored), but turns out, the Blue Knights (Yonsei's cheering team) came out in their costumes to kick off a series of consecutive cheering. I couldn't ask for a better way to end off Akaraka. I felt so much school spirit and it brought me so much joy to see all of us students jumping up and down, cheering and singing together, dancing like no tomorrow, and having such a happy time as one school body.

It felt so surreal and unbelievable to be there in that moment and I didn't want it to end. Though, the reality of it was that the event wrapped up at 10:30pm, after 8 hours worth of celebration. When will you ever have this experience in North America?

Yonsei students know how to throw a party.
사랑하다 연세!