The Corrida

Yesterday was November 11, and as such, all schools in France had the day off in remembrance of the end of the Grand Guerre Mondiale de Quatorze, or the end of World War I. I had been invited by a member of my Rotary Host Club to go see the Corrida, or bull fighting. Now, I know you're thinking, "Bull fights? Isn't this girl in France? When did she get transferred to Spain?" Don't freak out, I'm still in France, but being as I'm living in the very south of France, near the Spanish border, I get to experience some of the traditions that have carried over from Spanish culture, the most notable one being the corrida.

First, I got picked up by my host, and then we drove for an hour to St. Sever (I didn't realize until I wrote it while thinking in English that it's really not a very pleasant name, especially when the subject of discussion is something violent like, well, bull fighting). After a look at an exposition of corrida-inspired art, we had lunch (because nothing in France is complete unless there's a meal involved). After lunch, Fix, the husband of the woman who brought me, took me to talk with some of the other people around my age. I got into a conversation with a guy who actually is a bull fighter (though he wasn't participating in this particular corrida) and he explained a lot of the idea behind the corrida.

Basically, the bull is a special beast, because unlike most animals, when attacked, he doesn't flee, but fights and continues to fight. It's for this that the bull is considered a good adversary and the bull fighters want to engage in competition with him.

After this, I actually went to go see the corrida. It was four fighters, and four bulls killed, one by one. First the bull enters the ring, charges around a bit, then the fighter faces him one on one and spins around and dodges him for a while. Then they stab him with a few spikes. This is usually done my someone else, though one of the fighters did it himself. After, the bull is more angry, and the fighter continues to dodge his charges. Then, the bull fighter gets his sword, and attempts to kill the bull as swiftly as possible, though this doesn't always work out well.

It was nice to have Fix there to explain the traditions to me. For instance, if the crowd considers the fight to have been good, they wave handkerchiefs demanding that the ears of the bull be cut of and given to the fighter. One ear is nice. Two ears is excellent. On very rare occasions, they give the fighter both ears and the tail. And if the bull was excellent, his corpse is pulled around the arena and applauded.

Honestly, I'm not sure how I felt about all of this. It was very interesting, and at times quite beautiful, but in the end the bull always dies (apparently really strong bulls are allowed to live, but this is a SUPER RARE occurrence). I think it really helped to get the little introduction to the practice beforehand, otherwise I would have been completely lost as to what was going on.