Well, after some consideration, I've decided to break off my relationship with South Korea. The whole ordeal is how I imagine it would be breaking up with an abusive boyfriend. I wanted it to work out, but that would mean sacrificing all happiness and self-worth.
So, I'm off the Hanoi, Vietnam in the morning. It is supposed to have a promising French-inspired old quarter, complete with les cafes (sorry, can't make a proper accent mark on my keyboard).
I plan to continue blogging about South Korea. I still have some sightseeing posts I want to write and, of course, a scathing (LOL!) review of Korean culture in general. So, please, keep reading ChungJuicy for the moment.
Also, please read my new blog about my adventures in Vietnam, http://www.vietnaomi.blogspot.com/.
An-yeong!
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Monday, December 6, 2010
Scooby Doo and a Mummy, Too!
The onset of the Christmas season reminds me that I have yet to post my Halloween blog. So, here it is:
Since Korea does not celebrate Halloween, the academy requested that foreign teachers host special classes/parties to teach the kids about the holiday.
They wanted special class content, games, trick-or-treating, snacks, costume contests, class decorations... "Make a list of what you need," they said. "Costumes are mandatory for foreign teachers." Loving Halloween, we eagerly wrote lists and waited, and waited, and waited for supplies. We waited so long that, the night before the party, most of us broke down and bought candy and games out of our own wallets so that the kids would not be disappointed, and we decorated our rooms with monsters and haunted houses colored by the kids. Then, come the day of the party, the school finally showed up with supplies thirty minutes after classes started. (Hmmm....typical.)
It took over a week to introduce Halloween. After all, in Korea, the scariest thing they can think of is a kitten (and I'm not kidding about that). I taught them all about monsters, dressing up in costumes, trick-or-treating... They didn't like the idea of a holiday dedicated to fear, but they quickly warmed up to the idea of free candy.
Kris Teacher dressed up like a cat. This genuinely horrified many students who cowered away from him in the hallway. I dressed as the Wicked Witch with green skin. This mostly confused the kids, since they don't have witches with green skin in Korea. They asked if I was Fiona from Shrek. I did managed to instill quite a bit of fear, however. My littlest kids were truly freaked out. The best moment was when I entered my middle school class and got full-on, super-scared, top-of-the-lungs screams out of 7 teenagers. Awesome!
Since Korea does not celebrate Halloween, the academy requested that foreign teachers host special classes/parties to teach the kids about the holiday.
They wanted special class content, games, trick-or-treating, snacks, costume contests, class decorations... "Make a list of what you need," they said. "Costumes are mandatory for foreign teachers." Loving Halloween, we eagerly wrote lists and waited, and waited, and waited for supplies. We waited so long that, the night before the party, most of us broke down and bought candy and games out of our own wallets so that the kids would not be disappointed, and we decorated our rooms with monsters and haunted houses colored by the kids. Then, come the day of the party, the school finally showed up with supplies thirty minutes after classes started. (Hmmm....typical.)
It took over a week to introduce Halloween. After all, in Korea, the scariest thing they can think of is a kitten (and I'm not kidding about that). I taught them all about monsters, dressing up in costumes, trick-or-treating... They didn't like the idea of a holiday dedicated to fear, but they quickly warmed up to the idea of free candy.
On the day of the party, a few kids and teachers managed to come in costume. Luckily, the local markets had a small stock of Halloween items available. The Korean teachers decorated the hallways with black balloons and fake spiderwebs while the foreign teachers were in classes. They organized designated trick-or-treating and costume-contest time. Of course, all of this was worked out in Korean, so come trick-or-treat time, they failed to include the foreign teachers in their plans. So, sadly, many of the kids missed out on the fun. Luckily, my room is right next to the main room, so I was able to figure out what was happening and send my kids out to join the party.
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| Coral Teacher as Frankenstein-Reaper and Christina Teacher as Vampire-Witch (serious monster confusion). |
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| Costume Contest |
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Annie Kitten |
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| Jasmin Kitten |
My classes got to watch Scooby Doo episodes. They seemed to really like it and laughed at the oddest times. Then, we had mummy races to see who could wrap their partners up in toilet paper the fastest. The kids especially liked the idea of all that TP at a school that does not provide TP in the bathrooms.
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| Mummy Races. She looks so happy because she knows that today, at least, she'll get to wipe her ass at school. |
Kris Teacher dressed up like a cat. This genuinely horrified many students who cowered away from him in the hallway. I dressed as the Wicked Witch with green skin. This mostly confused the kids, since they don't have witches with green skin in Korea. They asked if I was Fiona from Shrek. I did managed to instill quite a bit of fear, however. My littlest kids were truly freaked out. The best moment was when I entered my middle school class and got full-on, super-scared, top-of-the-lungs screams out of 7 teenagers. Awesome!
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| Kris and Moomarelli = Twinsies |
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| Me as the Wicked Witch |
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