Events...Broken Down

So a lot of stuff has been going on since the last blog, so allow me to catch you up on things.

Children’s Day & Buddha’s Birthday in South Korea
This is a major holiday, May 5th, in which the schools are closed in order to observe children and their immense contributions to society as well as their extraneous labor. This is actually not sarcasm. Many of my students stay at school on a nearly daily basis until 10 pm at night studying, Korean children deserve a Children’s Day more than any other children. I decided to go to a park here in Songtan that day and just take the nature in. Big ol’ mistake! The place was littered with picnics, and children, and children playing around picnics. I can say the same thing for Buddha’s birthday on May 10th. I understand going to the park on Buddha’s birthday, it’s a national holiday, what else are you supposed to be doing?

Korean Wedding
So I went to a Korean wedding, I can now scratch that off my list. The music teacher at my school got married and it was my opportunity to experience a Korean wedding in Korea. I will say that the experience was quite different to a Western-style wedding. There was a huge lunch buffet, I ate extremely well. They had everything: salads, a sushi bar, dessert bar, etc. However, the meal happened before the ceremony. Also, in order to get a ticket for the meal one had to give a gift, and the standard in Korea is to place some money (anywhere between 30-40,000 KRW) in an envelope to the couple. So it’s like they’re getting a return on their investment. The ceremony itself was actually brief. And because the bride is the music teacher, some students attended and sang a song during the ceremony, it was quite nice. The best part was that my school had a shuttle bus that took the staff from the school in Songtan to the wedding hall in the northern part of Seoul. That was very convenient. Speaking of the wedding hall, everything takes place there: reception, ceremony, and photographs. Quite interesting. Just pay the fee and let the hall staff do the work.

Teacher’s Day
Korea has a holiday to commemorate teachers, listen up USA, you could learn something. This year teacher’s day was on May 15th, a Sunday, but was observed at my school the Friday before. It was nice, there was an outside ceremony with the entire student body from both the middle in high school (only the second time since I’ve been here have I seen the HS interact with the MS). There were some speeches and some awards to long standing teachers at the school. Then, a student representative from each homeroom went up to the teachers and “pinned” them with a boutonniere of carnations, the flower symbolizing Korea’s Teacher’s Day. I also got a nice card from a student and a dress sock gift package from the PTA. The same day was also followed by another ceremony, the ribbon-cutting of the new school dormitory. I told ya, these kids stay here late, so the school decided to incorporate dorms onto its campus. They’re actually quite nice, and although its yet from being fully furnished, it’ll make student life here more bearable for the kids.

Speech Competition
Today was the first annual English speech contest at my school. To be honest, I didn’t think many students would sign up, but it turned out to be quite an event. 23 students signed up, of which three winners are selected. I and four other English teachers were the judges. These kids worked hard all week as they came into my office hours asking for an array of advice. I was happy to oblige. These kids have real courage for being the first ones to participate and doing it in front of a large student body and their teachers can’t be easy, kudos to them. It brought this nice work day to a close.

Things I’m looking forward to: Sports Day (two days in this week), some dinner meetings with friends which I will enjoy to the max, and speech exam week in my class next week. Big happenings during my final moments here.