Weekend 17 of 52.

Nanta, Baseball Game: Doosan Bears vs. Kia Tigers

Nanta, like Fanta-Stick, is a live performance that incorporates drumming, humor, and various antics that are essentially Korean. Unlike Fanta-Stick, though, Nanta is about cooking and there are no ghosts. Four chefs have only an hour to create an extensive menu of wedding foods, and they are easily sidetracked by their own rhythmic knife skills, some flirting, and an in-group rivalry. There's lots of flamboyant vegetable chopping followed by clumsy cartoony clean up scenes that ultimately result in men stuck in trash cans or unfortunate backside broom accidents. There's even full audience participation, during which an ajumma on our left was called out for consistently clapping at the wrong time. It was all hilarious and confounding.

On Sunday, we went out to Jamsil for a baseball game. Korean baseball is very similar to American baseball, but Korean baseball fans are quite different. They all have inflatable thunder sticks used for corporate noisemaking and choreographed cheering. Each batter for the home team had an accompanying video package and theme song, and we joined in on the chanting for home runs ("Kim Hyun-Soo Home Run!"). Each successful hit or completed play was met with an explosion of acclamation. It made for a lot of excitement.