Upon Watching Movies (Yu Jin Yi)

Recently I went to the movie theater to see Harry Potter and the Deathly
Hallows part 1. It was a theater in Shinjuku, Tokyo, similar to typical movie theaters in
Korea. A striking difference (if any) in terms of the theater structure was that there was
only one door to the screen room (making the entrance the exit)—though in Korea the
entrance and exit lead to totally different places that it almost feels like entering a
different world.
Anyhow, my friends and I bought some popcorn and went into the screen room.
The usher at the entrance gave each of us a large paper with numbers (we all got
different numbers). We didn’t know what it was for, but anyways fetched it and sat on
our designated seats—only to realize there was a horse race going on.
Yes, the horse race in which the horse and its rider race against other pairs to be
the fastest to reach the goal—and the speculators bet on which horse would win the
race. It was a little hard to understand what was going on at first, since the horse race
suddenly began on the screen that was advertising the release of brand new Japanese
movie just a few seconds ago. Pixar-animation-like horses (well to be accurate there
were a few normal horses, one giraffe, one elephant, a horse on top of a horse, and a
crazy horse that rocked its head zealously from left to right) were running down the
animated arena. Only after I saw the numbers written on side of each horse did I realize
what the paper I received from the entrance meant.
Compared to the shock I got after the movie, however, the horse race wasn’t
surprising at all. The horse race thing could have been once-an-occasion event at the
specific theater we went, right? It was the Japanese audience who refused to leave their
seats until the very end of the ending credit that surprised me.
In Korea, when one says “the end of the movie” usually it means something
like “the end of the movie right before the start of the ending credit.” Usually, Korean
movie theaters would light up the screen room at the start of the ending credit and
almost everyone would leave the theater before ending credit is over. In here, the screen
room remained dark, audience remained in their seats, and ending credit remained…as
an ending credit. It kept going upwards.
Afterwards I asked one of my Japanese friends for clarification. She said most
of the Japanese audience actually waits until the very end of the ending credit (though it
differs slightly from individuals to individuals) so that they wouldn’t have to go back to
the reality so immediately. I guess this is also one of the things so subtle that you won’t
know unless you experience it.