Korea Herald 20090403

COMMUNITY

FRIDAY APRIL 3, 2009

17

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Chul Yong (left) takes on Tae Yang at the Cheongdo Bullfighting Festival in Cheongdo on March 29.

Bart Schaneman/The Korea Herald

In Cheongdo, the bulls get the horns By Bart Schaneman

CHEONGDO, North Gyeongsang Province — This is not Hemingway’s bullfight. A man in a blue jacket that reads “Cheongdo Bullfighting” leads a bull into the ring. The tawny Hanwoo bull carries the bulk of his nearly 2,000 pounds in his neck and shoulders. He follows easily behind the man, led by a rope threaded through one nostril and out the other. On his flank is stamped in big, black Hanguel “Chul Yong.” The domed arena is circular and modern, with 12,000 plastic seats and two jumbo-screen TVs. It is half-full on this Sunday afternoon — there is one more fight before the end of the day. The man in the blue jacket waits with his bull in the center of the dirt ring. Not long after, a man in a red jacket leads out Tae Yang (“sun” in English). Similar in color and size, the most marked difference is the curvature of their horns — Chul Yong’s point outward, Tae Yang’s point upward. The two men bring the bulls together until they are head to head and less than a meter apart. From the press box the announcer calls the start. The

men command the bulls to fight, and with a charge the two heads hit. The men pull the ropes from out of their noses and the fight is underway. On a normal day it would have taken less than 10 minutes to drive north from the Cheondo train station in North Gyeonsgang Province to the arena. But on March 29, the third day of the five-day Cheongdo Bullfight Festival, it took more than half an hour. We had a good taxi driver that was aggressive and knew some short cuts, yet we still couldn’t get through the traffic, so 500 meters out we stopped him and walked. We passed people on the road — families of all ages, women carrying babies, and drunk men, with faces of those who have lost money, yelling at their friends. We passed food stands selling beer, rice wine, odeng (processed fish on a stick), gyeran bang (breaded eggs), and gift sets of dried persimmons. We passed an outdoor concert where a man in drag with clown-face paint led a drum circle in front of seated middle-aged men and women. It was a full-blown festival and about more than just the bulls.

Back in the ring, Chul Yong and Tae Yang are having trouble staying focused. They push and dig and snort intermittently, occasionally stopping to look around — more interested in their surroundings than each other. If yelling commands to attack fail, the two men who stay near their animals’ heads throughout the fight run the ropes around the bulls’ necks and pull them back together. It is curious how the bulls don’t turn on the men. Bullfighting has been part of Korea’s history for 1,000 years. What was once a village pastime has spread throughout some of the rural areas, and this annual festival is the main event. Now, much like the rodeo in the United States, there is a bullfighting circuit and they compete for money. As the fight reaches the 30-minute mark, the bulls are exhausted. Their sides heave in and out. Time after time they break from the fight and stand looking to their owners for direction. The hide covering their polls is gouged and bleeding. Again the owners yell and again they thrust, digging with their front legs, their humps straining as they work new angles, trying to turn the other or dri-

ve him back. Watching the bulls fight is almost like watching boxing or wrestling. But with men you see learning, adapting, you see them trying new strategies — with bulls you merely see two animals who don’t know why they are in that ring. Their managers can’t tell them how to exploit their opponent’s weaknesses; they can only tell them to fight. And even bulls can find fighting and the base act of proving male dominance pointless and dull. Finally, at 31:40 Chul Yong turns and runs, making a circle around the ring, choosing freedom from attrition over pride gained from victory. They place him in a pen on the side of the ring. Tae Yang’s owner takes a bow and leads his winning bull from the arena. Then the loser walks out, panting, his tongue wagging in his open mouth. There are those that claim that this type of bullfight is somehow more natural — that the bulls are exercising their natural dominant instincts — than Spanish corridas. The Spaniards (and the Portuguese, French and various people of Latin America) use horses, spears and swords. The

Korean kind is less bloody, and certainly less deadly. Yet as for how natural it is — this farmer’s son who grew up around cattle is not convinced. Bulls, in a domestic pasture setting, establish dominance for the purpose of breeding. The winner here is not competing for any tangible reward — no trailer full of yearling heifers waits outside the ring. So it is easy to understand the half-hearted performance of Chul Yong and Tae Yang. What then drove the bull in the last fight of the day? In the same manner as the previous fight, Tae Pung (“typhoon” in English) and Yong Bang are led into the ring. From the first moment, when the referee in hanbok calls for them to begin, it is clear this will be a different fight. Like boxers touching gloves, they touch noses. Then they pause for a moment to turn away from each other, lift their heads, and roll their nostrils back, sniffing, playing to an applauding crowd. Their owners call them back to the fight. They snort and paw like cartoon characters, and then smash together. They dig into the dirt, driving, paw-

ing, straining. Maybe these two are younger, hungrier — maybe they simply just have more pride. At the 3:24 mark Tae Pung digs down, thrusts, turns Yong Bang’s head and starts to drive him to the side. Yong Bang scrambles for traction, to get any kind of hold, to stop Tae Pung from driving him back, but the other bull is too strong, has too much momentum, and there is nothing he can do. When Yong Bang is driven to the panels along the side of the ring the fight is over. As with Chul Yong, they put Yong Bang in the loser’s pen on the side of the ring. Then he does an unusual thing. He begins to groan. His jaw hangs open, his fat, pink tongue hangs loose and he cries out. As the winner leaves the ring he moans over and over. He bellows either for his damaged pride or for another chance. He leaves the ring groaning. As the crowd files out, dancers and musicians appear for a ceremonial mask dance to celebrate the end of the ritual. We walk out of the arena to the beating of drums and the shrill pitch of horns. ([email protected])

In focus: aperture priority The Photo Challenge is sponsored by Hyosung Camera (English: 010-7203-9599) and Babo Shirts (www.baboshirts.com). Winners of the weekly competition receive a 50,000 won store credit at Hyosung Camera and a Babo Shirt. To take part in the competition, simply upload your photo at www.flickr.com/groups/seoulphotoclub — Ed. By Aaron Raisey

PHOTO CHALLENGE WINNER — “The Flying Man” hangs outside Namsan Tower, central Seoul. Photo by Aaron Brown

Last time we discussed that little dial on top of your DSLR and how just turning it a click or two will open up some wonderful opportunities to be creative. I mentioned using the fullyManual mode for beautiful night shots and Shutter Priority for emphasizing action or motion. Today we will bring Aperture Priority into focus. Q: What is the aperture? A: The aperture is like an iris in

the camera lens. The iris in your eye regulates the amount of light reaching the retina. Likewise, the amount of light reaching the sensor (or film) in the camera is controlled by the lens’ aperture. Your iris gets bigger as your environment gets darker, and smaller when you step outside into the bright sunlight. Q: What is Aperture Priority mode? A: We control the size of the aperture manually, thereby controlling how much light enters the camera. The size of a lens’ aperture is characterized by a number. A smaller number means a larger aperture (lots of light), and a bigger number indicates a smaller aperture (less light). I know it’s counterintuitive, but suffice to say small equals big, big equals small, and what the numbers actually mean is beyond the scope of this column. Q: So, how does a small aperture (large number) affect my

photography? A: Basically, almost the entire image is in focus. If you focus on a person 10 meters away, almost everything in front of them and everything behind is in focus. The smaller apertures are typically used by landscape photographers to ensure everything, from the nearby trees to the distant mountains, is nice and sharply in focus. Next time you take a picture of a cityscape try a smaller aperture to ensure more of the photograph is nice and sharp. Q: If a smaller aperture means more of the photo is in focus, does a larger aperture (smaller number) mean less of the picture is in focus? A: Basically, yes. For example, if you focus on someone 2 meters away with a large aperture, everything in front of and everything behind them becomes progressively more out of focus. This is used to great effect by portrait photogra-

phers to bring attention to an in-focus subject by creating beautiful blurred (out of focus) backgrounds. The creative possibilities with your photography at larger apertures are exciting. Q: Anything else I need to keep in mind? A: To create a balanced exposure in Aperture Priority mode, the camera compensates for your aperture selection by adjusting its shutter speed. A bigger aperture means more light therefore a faster shutter speed. Likewise, smaller aperture, less light, slower shutter speed. You do have some limited control over this, maybe by shooting at a higher or lower ISO, or by using exposure compensation. Get out there, try shooting the same subject at different apertures and see how it affects the image. You might find that creative spark you are looking for in the results. ([email protected])