About the bull fights

Hello, everyone! It has been wonderful to hear from you, my family and friends, that you have indeed, been keeping up with my blog. I truly wish that each one of you could be here with me to experience what I am experiencing, and since that is really unfeasible, this is the next best thing. Anyhow, I will catch you up the latest happenings here in Sevilla.

Here I am at the Plaza de Toros in Sevilla.

Corridas, or Bullfighting
First and foremost, I would like to tell you all about my first experience with bullfighting. The Corridas, or bullfights, are the iconic cultural embodiment of Spain. And the touristy shops certainly sell their share of stuffed animal bulls and shot glasses with cartoon bulls, and t-shirts and whatnot. But when you really get down to the actual meat of it (had to say it) it’s really intriguing. To be honest, I had never really given the subject much thought until this summer when I read The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemmingway. The book describes a bullfight, but to be honest, what I mainly got out of the book was how darn stylish it is to gallivant around Europe with a pickled liver and an intense cigarette habit, rambling from bar to bar ostentatiously spending some unknown inheritance on whisky and wine, expensive hotels and weekend trips to other countries. So Ernest didn’t help me much.

The Controversy
Bullfighting is wee bit of a controversial topic to some people. To kill 6 animals in the span of 2 hours for cultural/entertainment/celebratory purposes might seem a little grotesque. However, I think that it is important to see the big picture. I was lucky enough to attend a seminar given by an incredibly interesting American expatriate with an incredible story and a brain full of bull fighting knowledge. I will try my best to give the condensed version here:

Our Speaker
Our speaker was a high school Spanish teacher from California who would yearly take a group of students to Sevilla for a summer study program. When she about my age, she actually had done a study abroad program herself and had seen the running of the bulls in Pamplona, and really hated it. She was horrified at it and really had no desire to see a bull fight after her first experience. When she was older and became a teacher, she would yearly take students to Spain, and there was a shop she loved to go into. It was the shop of an artist, and she started collecting prints by the artist, and really fell in love with his work. After a few years, she finally got a chance to meet the artist, who turns out to be not only an artist, but also a torero, or bullfighter, from the United States, who lived in Spain. Well, wouldn’t you know that they meet, fall in love, and get married. And, through him, she was able to appreciate bull fighting. Her husband was a great bull fighter, a great man, and a wonderful husband, but has since passed away. And now, as a way to keep his memory alive, she has coauthored a book about her husband and also gives seminars to help people understand the history and culture behind bullfighting. And I was one of the lucky people who had the privilege to hear her insight before going to the corridas my first time.

Why it's not so sad
She explained to us that the bullfight is not actually a fight. The word in Spanish is corrida, which translated, does not mean fight. It is actually more of a drama of life. The bull dies, yes, but then its meat is used to help sustain life, and every part of the bull is, indeed, used after it is killed.

So having said that, there are still more reasons not to feel sad at the bull fight. First of all, the bulls have an incredibly good life. Better than most livestock that we raise to eat in the US. (If you think bull fighting is a grotesque violation of animal rights, you should research where your bacon or frozen chicken breast came from, and then seriously re-consider which battle is worth the fight) Second of all, the bull spends no longer than 15 minutes in the bull ring. And it is not a bad 15 minutes, at that. The bull is doing what it naturally does, which is to charge after moving objects. And it gets a lot of satisfaction out of charging the horses, which you’ll see pictures of below. Thirdly, they don’t feel much pain. They have so much adrenaline going, and also, they have such thick hides that they really can’t feel when they are pierced with the banderillas and such. Fourth, it is a fair fight. The toreros, or bullfighters, are risking their lives, and because of this I feel they are a little more justified in their actions.

Thanks for reading... now on to the pictures

These are all of the matadors, picadors, and peons parading out.

More pictures to come!