Buddha's Birthday in Korea

 In Korea, Buddha's Birthday is called 석가탄신일 (Seok-ga tan-si-nil) or 부처님 오신날 (Bu-cheon-im o-sin-nal) meaning "the day when Buddha arrived".

Streets all over are lined with colourful lanterns and many temples offer free meals (like san-chae bim-bim-bap >> rice topped with veggies & hot sauce) and tea to visitors.

This year, it falls on Friday, May 21 - which means it's a public holiday!

Pic from Google Images

Korean New Year

Tteok-Guk (떡국) is eaten on New Years Day.
It's the dish with soup & rice cakes.
(The reddish dish is tteok-pokki...rice cakes with hot sauce)

Tomorrow (Monday, January 26 2009) is the Korean New Year ~ Seollal.

This is a family-orientated holiday and Koreans perform
ancestral rituals in the morning of New Years.

Halloween

Happy Halloween!
^*^*^*^*^*^*^

Image from Google Images

Chuseok 2008

Pic from Google images

It's Chuseok in Korea... which means a (very) long w'end...

Taken from Wikipedia:

Chuseok, originally known as Hangawi (한가위) (from archaic Korean for "great middle"), is a major harvest festival and a three-day holiday in Korea celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar Korean calendar. As a celebration of the good harvest, Koreans visit their ancestral hometowns and share a feast of Korean traditional food.

Nearly all of my Korean friends have traveled to their grandparents' home and will perform various ceremonies in honour of their ancestors. There was a definite buzz in my market place as people hurried to do last minute shopping. Suddenly, everything seems so quiet now...

I've been keeping myself occupied with sorting out my apartment, and watching DVD's... chatting to family & friends online ~

Experiencing a Korean death...

One of the 5th grade teachers at my school... her mother passed away after battling with lung cancer for about a year.

I went to pay my respect after school yesterday. My friend, who is the school librarian and I traveled to Incheon... maybe just under an hour away. We walked for quite a distance till we got to the memorial building near a church.

My friend collected a white envelope from an office-looking room when we entered, and she put some cash inside. And then we walked down a passage, looking for the deceased's family. Inside this room was a photograph of the deceased, with many flowers surrounding it. Her husband and son were standing next to it as people offered their condolences. Afterwards, they would kneel and bow to the photograph.

My teacher friend told me to put a white rose next to the photograph and say a prayer. In the same room, there was a man sitting behind a desk collecting envelopes with cash and making a note of it in a book.

After paying our respect, we were led to another room across the passage where tables were set with food and drink for the mourners to have.

Today, some Korean teachers at my school told me that funeral services only take place 3 days after the person has died. Why? I asked... well, before... in the olden days, after a person was declared 'dead' ... they would suddenly be alive again after a day or... 2?!!! Maybe they were just sleeping?!!!! So now, it is Korean law that the funeral only takes place 3 days after the person has died!

Traditional Korean Dancing

I was asked to write a guest article for a Korean magazine. I had to take part in traditional Korean dancing, where I wore the traditional Korean dress (hanbok) and head gear (jokduri)
The dance is known as Buchaechum and is a fan dance performed during shaman rites.

It was pretty cool and I learnt how to flick two fans open with one quick motion. Took a bit of practice, but I soon got there! The class was comprised mostly of Japanese tourists, so I didn't have the pressure of having to look like I knew exactly what I was doing all the time! There were plenty of giggles all around as it was the first time any of us had tried it. I felt a bit clumsy in the dress and felt like I was going to trip every few steps, but I just tried to look cool. Overall, I had fun ^^*

Gift-giving aint only for the holidays!

This past week has been like any other week - busy and full of lesson planning and teaching. As I mentioned in my previous post, I had my demo class on Tuesday...

Since arriving in South Korea, I have been short of basically nothing. I was told Korean people are very generous and kind - something I can definitely vouch for. My co-workers have gone out of their way to make sure I am comfortable in my new home.

However, this week I felt more spoilt than usual.

It started on Monday ... Jong Suk arrived back to school after her week long honeymoon in Europe. As far as I know, honeymoons are meant for newly weds to celebrate the beginning of their marriage - but she came back to school loaded with gifts! In the morning, she delivered cakes and fruit to each grade's teacher's room (this was an act of reciprocity - to thank the staff for their monetary wedding gifts to her). And she brought back Swiss chocolates for the fourth grade staff (including me, although I belong to the 6th grade staff!).

On Tuesday after my demo class, my co-teacher took me out for dinner...

On Wednesday, I was given a gift by a grade 2 teacher...a blanket to cover my knees with, that also folds up into a little pillow!

On Thursday when I went to teach the Kindergarten class, a little girl came to give me something she made out of a milk carton. I have no idea what it is, but there was a note inside that said, (in Korean) "English teacher, I love you"


Also, on Thursday my principal and vice-principal took my co-teacher and I out for lunch to congratulate us on our demo class. We went to a tofu (here it's pronounced too-boo) restaurant. I was really touched by this because they are usually very busy and took nearly 2 hours out of their working day to spend with me.

The following day I delivered cakes to them as a 'thank you' gift.

Reciprocation is vitally important here, and gifts given in return should be of roughly the same economic value. Hence, gifts should be given according to the recipient's economic status.

Also, both hands are used when offering and receiving gifts, and they should never be opened in front of the giver – unless he/she and the recipient are good friends. When one receives a gift, it is considered polite to first resist the offer.

When signing a card or gift label, red ink is NEVER used as only deceased people's names are written in this colour.

If I go away on a trip, I should bring back a gift for my colleague as this indicates that while I was having a good time, I thought of my co-workers who were working.

In my anthropological studies, I studied an entire section on the culture of gift-giving. In society, we have three obligations. Firstly, if we are invited anywhere (to a birthday party or wedding) we are obliged to take a gift. Secondly, the recipient is obliged to reciprocate the gesture. And thirdly – we have an obligation of accepting the gift.

Pepero Day

Pepero sticks are like the chocolate-dipped pretzel sticks we get in South Africa. The maker's of this popular snack in Korea invented "Pepero Day". It is celebrated on November 11 because the numerical date (11/11) resembles four Pepero sticks! On this day, people give Pepero boxes to their lovers and friends (almost like a Valentine's Day?!)

Because Pepero Day falls on a Sunday this year, kids at school exchanged Peporo boxes on Friday. I was really spoiled because I received Pepero gifts from my students and a few teachers.