While I was visiting Korea a few weeks ago, I found out that there was a gay pride in Seoul. I changed my travel plan and headed for Seoul just to see the event, march in the parade and report back on wiqaable!

Named 2009 Korea Queer Culture Festival, this celebration of Korean AND Queer identities and cultures consisted of a film festival, stage performances, a parade, an afterparty, and many other special events around the southern part of the Korean peninsula from May 30, 2009 through June 13, 2009. I took part on the last day on which the parade was rescheduled to happen because of the recent death of a former president Mr. Noh.

Around 2pm, I arrived at the Berlin Plaza, where part of the Wall of Berlin is being displayed, and found big rainbow balloons raised proudly. It wasn't a huge space, just a corner of a block along Cheong Gye Cheon, a stream whose sides had been renewed to beautify the city and offer relaxation for their busy lives (that's the intent I assume). There were about ten booths of local community organizations, gay magazine, public health organization, and support groups. Some of them were selling various items to fundraise, and others were handing out info sheets, flyers, pamphlets, condoms, postcards, and the like.

I started bothering...I mean, talking to folks in English and my broken Korean. They told me that this was the 10th anniversary of this festival. According to their official magazine, the first one took place on August 26, September 8 and 9, 2000. In the following ten years, they have been disrupted not only by rain but also anti-gay Christians. I didn't see any anti-gay things happening when I was there; or maybe they were just unnoticeable. After all, it was sunny and very peaceful.

At 3:30pm, the opening ceremony that led to the parade began. It featured drag king and queen shows, men's chorus group, youth dance performances, hip hop performances, and traditional Korean dance performance, as well as speeches made by the organizers, the first openly gay actor (see photo below), and a couple of folks who seemed to be some kind of officials.

The youth teams looked like they were still in high school, and they probably choreographed by themselves––they were soooo cute! As someone who work with Queer youth, I was so happy that I found powerful agency in their performance. Many of them probably can't tell their family or friends that they're Queer, but they still have this opportunity to unite with their folks and express themselves. And it felt like the community was supporting them well. I know it was only a handful of Queer youths that could be there, but it made me very hopeful. While these pop music dance groups were mostly (femmy) boys, the hip hop groups were interestingly mostly girls/womyn. And they were hella dope. Hip hop is very popular in South Korea because of the presence of the US military, and now it has, of course, been appropriated by Queers.

The parade followed the ceremony, leading people along the Cheong Gye Cheon and back. It wasn't big, with only a handful floats, and the actual time we marched was like an hour; but we held up signs, blasted K-pop, and made appearance. Honestly, I don't know exactly how much it meant for the Korean society to see us for real; but I thought it was meaningful for us to do that before big companies begin to exploit our celebration.


I liked how I saw a lot of younger folks and female-bodied folks volunteering because what I see at SF Pride is older White men getting paid to be there. But at the same time, I need to be real about the privilege of being able to choose do this kind of work for money. Availability of "pink-collared" jobs doesn't necessarily indicate how "developed" a local Queer communities are, but money is important for our sustainability. It would be ignorant of me to say that this is better just because it's more volunteer-based, when in fact they can't afford to hire anyone to do anything. It just made me ponder on what Pride really means to various communities.


Another difference I noticed between this festival and SF Pride was people's behaviors. For a lot of Americans, Pride is about drinking, (un)dressing as Queer as possible, and having sex––at least from my observation. At this festival, most of Koreans seemed sober, dressed as usual, and...well, I don't know about the sex part. No, I really don't. Not so much. Indeed, the contrast between Koreans and White people at the festival were so sharp. I felt so awkward as I saw White folks getting drunk, dressing gay (some of them were wearing American Apparel's "Legalize Gay" t-shirt), and feeling entitled to even be there without respecting the space. I felt seriously awkward. Like OMG.


What I liked the most about this festival was traditional Korean dance. Dressed in traditional Korean costumes with traditional Korean colors (red, blue and yellow) and rainbow, plus masks for confidentiality, they performed just so fiercely. It was amazing. It was a simple representation of Korean identity and Queer identity combined, but I personally experienced something more than that. To me, it was the moment when I recognized how the two identities collide with one another to form an entirely new, profound, calm, integrated, calm and powerful identity all together. Struggles against thousands of years of military oppression and colonization, and struggles against the oppression that divides us from our own people we love. But we can still be proud of ourselves and express the pride so powerfully, even with masks on. It is my dream to achieve unification of my people over borders, nation-states, abilities, sexualities, languages, politics, and geographical locations. I learned from this festival what it really means to celebrate who we are.