Halloween (a day of revenge for teachers)

We celebrated Halloween at our Hagwon yesterday and it truly was the scariest and most fun I can remember having on Halloween. I hadn't realised the extent to which Halloween is celebrated in America until speaking to our American colleague, Nelressa. I had assumed it was a rather hyped-up but usually disappointing affair as that's the experience I have had in the UK. She said they have huge parades throughout the city and everybody dresses up in costume. She was adamant that we made a big deal out of Halloween at TLC because it's probably one of the most creative 'festivals' there is and great for children.

We converted two rooms and a corridoor into a haunted house which was all blacked out with massive sheets of black plastic and decorated with headless dummies and spooky hanging masks. One room became a simple maze where the children had to follow a path in groups no more than three and they were spooked by various things as they walked a long it. Nelressa made herself a superb costume where she was a head on a plate (she knelt under a table that had a hole in it so her head could come through it.) She screamed a 'dying scream' as the children were just about to prod her to see if she was real. Her headless body was lying next to it. Lee was a monster who grabbed the children's ankles as they ran in fear. Daisy wore the white 'scream' mask and chased the children out into the next room which was also pitch black with a TV showing static in the far end of the room. Those of you that are familiar with the Japanese horror film 'Ringu' will know where the inspiration came for this... The children were told to go and touch the TV (by this point most of them were so pertified that it took them about five minutes to pluck up the courage to set foot in the room.) As they went to touch the TV I crawled out in my traditional Korean ghost costume (see photos) so that when they turned around I was already stood behind them. I have never heard so many screams in my life!

It was lots of fun and the children really enjoyed it. We got to make our most hated students scream and cry with fear so everybody ended up being very happy.

Take a look at some of the photos. I have included some snaps of some of my favourite kindergarten students who all came dressed for the occassion. (By the way, we didn't let the kindergarten students into the haunted house- one of them cried just at the sight of me without me having to crawl out from behind a TV.)

Spam, Spam, Seaweed & Spam.

Yet again, I have let too much time slip in between updating this blog but my excuse is that I have suffered from flu and relentless and numerous colds and coughs this last month. I guess this is the punishment for working with children.

A fair few things have happened since I last updated our blog- the most important event being "Chuseok" which is Korea's biggest annual celebration and National holiday. As far as I could tell it involved giving people the biggest gift packs of Spam or dried seaweed I have ever seen. In fact, I didn't even realise that Spam existed in gift packs until about two weeks before Chuseok when all the supermarkets started stocking these enormous boxes of the stuff wrapped in ribbons. It was rather like visiting the shops in England before Christmas, except that the Cadbury's variety packs had been replaced with these rather less appetising morsels.

Anyhow, I did some research and found out that there is more to Chuseok than Spam. Legend has it that the festival originates from a huge weaving contest that took place between two princesses about two thousand years ago. It is said that the loser had to prepare a sumptuous and enormous feast and this traditional is still the major theme of Chuseok. Another important part of the celebration is to pay homage to ancestors and people are expected to visit ancestral graves to clean them and give offerings.

Most people wear hanboks which is traditional Korean dress. All the Kindergarten children arrived at our Hagwon dressed up in them which was quite adorable until they dragged their silky sleeves through the soup we had made in our cooking class and proceeded to cry.

Our Chuseok celebration involved having a couple of friends to stay for the weekend which was really good. I went to university with them and they arrived in Korea to teach a couple of weeks before we did. They are living in Jeollonam-do which is further South than us and very rural. They are the only Westerners in their village and they are teaching in public schools so it was interesting to compare notes with them. It seems that their experience of Korea is quite different to ours and I think that living in rural Korea has given them more of an insight into traditional Korea as they have managed to avoid the sleazy, superficial, commercial and 'Americanised' aspect of Korea that frustates Lee and I so much. Talking to them has made me realise that I shouldn't assume that all of Korea has developed into the souless and money-making machines that many of the cities (and the people) have become. I would really like to see some more of the countryside and meet the people that still live hold on to traditional Korean values.

So for the last few weekends we have ventured out on our bicycles into the surrounding rice fields beyond the city and it has been a really uplifting experience. We can leave Gimhae behind after about twenty minutes of cycling and it's really peaceful cycling along the river and watching the people fishing or hearing the hum of a combine harvester trimming the rice. The rice was a brilliant green about six weeks ago but it has gradually turned into blades of beautiful gold and burnt orange which looks really dramatic against a blue sky and the mountains. The people that we have met whilst cycling outside of the city seem to be far more pleasant than those that we have met in Gimhae. We are normally bombarded with teenagers yelling 'Hi!' at us and pointing and laughing at us like we are some kind of circus act. They have no interest in us other than to laugh because we are 'funny' looking. In the countryside people try so hard to talk to us and they often ask us where we are from and if we are teachers. It's a refreshing change.

Here are some photos of this weekend for you to browse. Mum, there is one of my fringe- just for you x