Happy Halloween!

Friday October 28th

The Halloween celebrations started off on Friday with a party in the afternoon for our older kids. We were told to dress up so us four foreign afternoon teachers tried to hunt for any sort of Halloween costume possible on the island. It was a little difficult as Halloween is a relatively new holiday for Koreans; they have only incorporated it recently as they are adopting other western traditions. Also, Koreans are definitely not big on variation, so unlike America where everyone is trying to out-do each other with the most creative costume, 99% of the children were either in matching witches or wizards costumes, or were a princess. All the costumes came from the same store (Homeplus; pretty much the super super walmart of Geoje) so really the biggest difference between children was which color they had chosen. Anyway, we scrounged up some stuff last minute, for as cheap as we could, and ended up as a ghost, the guy from scream, some sort of vampire, and a weird ghost/zombie outfit I made about ten minutes before the classes arrived. We were pretty proud of ourselves for showing the Koreans how it was done, as all of the Korean teachers chose 'cute' costumes such as cats and bunnies. However, when the children bounded up the stairs about 75% of them screamed and ran away, and three started bawling so badly they had to be taken to the office to calm down and miss the festivities... needless to say we were told to dress a little more 'happy' on Monday for the kindergarteners celebration. I guess not only have the Koreans not added the trick or treating part into their Halloween celebrations, but they also aren't quite used to the whole scary aspect of it either. It was still a fun celebration though with a few games and a talent show where pretty much all of the boys showed off their Taekwondo moves and the girls performed a dance to RollyPolly by Kpop (the insanely big pop band here at the moment).



wonder why we made so many children cry...

               On Saturday the 29th I made a very poor decision and was talked into going to Okpo Land Theme Park. This old amusement park sits on the ridge above Okpo city on Geoje. It was shut down in 1999 after its SECOND fatality where a young girl fell off a "chick shaped sky bike". The owner quickly shut it down and disappeared so as never to have to pay the family any money. It is rumored to be haunted so a group of people from Geoje thought Halloween weekend would be a perfect time to go check it out.

I'm not sure what the truth is behind the being haunted aspect of it, but either way wandering around a deserted and overgrown theme park in the drizzling rain and darkness was about the creepiest thing I have ever done. Cracked and falling apart merry-go-rounds and other giant character figures definitely did not help. I have never been so happy to get out of a place and back into a taxi home!

Monday was our kindergarten celebration, and as I said above we were told to dress a little more kid friendly, so I borrowed a friends' insanely huge rhino costume which was a bit more of a hit. Once again, aside from a strawberry, all of the girls were princesses and most of the boys wizards or "Taekwondo Boy" which just meant they wore their outfit for Taekwondo class later. We played games again and passed out A LOT of candy while the children shouted "trick or treat!" at us in a large circle. For most of them this was the only Halloween celebration they would have, unless attending some sort of Hallween party with their parents later. It is not common to actually go trick or treating and my kids were very confused when I tried to explain children walking around in the dark going from house to house asking for candy from strangers.

Ann 2

Yenny

Monica

Tommy

Not quite sure why they always must make this face in pictures..

Kids Club Happy Together Festival

Thursday October 27th was my school's largest event of the year; The Happy Together Festival.
The Korean teachers have been preparing for this event all month. They all had to learn a dance and then teach it to the children in the classrooms that they co-teach in. All of the children had to create and memorize a speech in English as well. Each class also put on their own musical or play type thing, depending on their age and level.

For most of the month of October I was told to replace my entire "theme time" (about an hour at the beginning of the class with a central focus on some given topic) with speech practice. I felt horrible for all my students as they had to repeat the same paragraph over and over, day after day while being instructed on what tone of voice to take, or gestures to make by my Korean co-teacher in order to make it as "cute" as possible for the parents. The closer the concert got, the more stressed the Korean teachers became. I am lucky enough to have my director as my co-teacher, since they got rid of one of the others in order to save money. This entire concert was basically a show for the parents in order to convince them that their children are getting the best English education their money can buy them.. since it is a lot of money. So Judy Teacher was more than a little stressed in the days leading up to the show. I had to bring a lot of crying children into the hall to be comforted after she snapped at them a little too hard for forgetting a line or making the wrong hand motion.

Harvard Class in Outfit Number one

Two days prior to the show anything at all educational was taken out of the schoolday and the children did nothing but run through their speeches, songs, and dances all day. On the morning of the Thursday performance we all boarded busses and went to the wedding hall that the event was going to be in for a practice run. The duties of the foreign teachers consisted of a quick introduction at the beginning of the children's performances, helping position the microphone when our class gave their speeches, and most importantly; smiling and waving at all of the mothers and fathers who attended. In true Korean form they also threw in last minute that we would be taking part in the final dance of the show. Luckily it turned out to be made up of very simple hand gestures and there was a teacher guiding us from the front row that we could watch. Each teacher had at least a small part in their classes' performance as well, and in this I got extremely lucky. All I had to do was introduce the plot of our play, The Little Red Hen, with a few sentences and then exit off stage. Antonia acted as a dinosaur in hers, Sophia was a shoemaker in her performance, and Elisti had to give a  speech that started "I am Elisti Cat, I am sooo sexy". Her class is the youngest and each of their speeches were about them being different animals. We figured that the Korean's must use the word "sexy" differently if they were making her give a speech that contained it, however when all of the parents erupted in laughter after she said that line.. we realized that must not be the case. This was nothing, however, compared to Devon's role in his children's act. His kids were performing the musical Mama Mia, and Devon had to be on stage the entire time and dance in everything from "Honey, Honey", to "Dancing Queen".

Sophia's Class

Outfit Number Two

I do not think these boys are not going to be pleased when they
see pictures of themselves in these outfits when they get older

Thursday afernoon we were allowed to leave our classes 30 minutes early and taxi to the wedding hall where we were told to stand at the door and bow and greet all of the parents coming in. After that we waited in a screened off room with our children, stuffing them with as much candy as they wanted in order to keep them quiet until it was their turn. I think the show went very well except for one major oddity- the costumes. When I arrived Thursday I was shocked to see my kindergarteners in some belly-baring cowboy and cowgirl outfits. The girls AND the boys had on tons of makeup and their hair was perfectly done. Some of the girls even had extensions in. I still have yet to figure out what cowboy apparel had to do with a play about a little red hen anyway.. Even our director went all out. She had gotten her hair done at some point with giant purple flowers in it. She matched this with a polka dot dress, patterned tights, and heels that were covered completely in glitter. Korean fashion at its best!

Outfit number two for their dance was some sort of elvis ensemble; still quite funny but made a little more sense. Some of the other classes were equally gaudily dressed and I can only imagine the reaction the children will have in the future when they see what their parents and schoolteachers made them wear when they were little.

All in all I think the show went well. It was one of the first times all the foreign teachers really felt appreciated; they brought us on stage at the end to take a bow and many of the parents handed us flowers. Afterwards there was a HUGE buffet at the hall with some of the most delicious food I have seen since being in Korea. We all sat so long at the table eating that eventually the Korean teachers had to tell us it was time to go. The best part was, our boss had to pick up the tab! It was great payback for the past week of stress she had caused us.

The entire event was filmed so hopefully I will be able to get my hands on a copy of that DVD, it should be good for a laugh!

Busan International Fireworks Festival



 Busan International Fireworks Festival

The Busan International Fireworks Festival was from October 21st to October 29th. I went to it on Saturday the 22nd. I rode the bus from Geoje to Busan with a couple friends who were also headed up to see the show. The trip by bus is only about an hour and a half, and Busan is a great city full of lots of westerners and some great shopping- there is even rumored to be an American Apparel somewhere there, although we could not find it. The only problem was that I was still phoneless at this point. I spent many hours Friday night trying to get a "pay as you go/ no contract" phone after receiving my Alien ID card FINALLY on Thursday. It was a little difficult since I was by myself and none of the workers at any of the three cell phone stores I went to spoke even a little English. Finally with the help of Google Translate and a couple young Korean girls who happened to be in the shop at the time and knew a little English, I got what I hoped was what I wanted. There were a couple set backs however. Number one, as I went to pay he informed me since it was now after 8:00 pm (this is after I waited over two hours in the store) the cell phone would not actually work until after the weekend, and also, it was all in Korean. I was so tired and desperate to get out of there at this point that I just took it anyway and figured I could easily switch the language setting on the phone, as that is what many other people have done here. Turns out, after I had all of my students in my afternoon classes give it a try (I said whoever could switch it got five stamps) that it was not possible, so in the end I had to go back and get a whole other phone... another long process.

But anyway, that is another story. The way that it affected Busan was that after parting ways with the friends I had rode the bus up with in order to meet up with Morgan and a few of her friends from Jinju that were already there, I found myself in the pouring rain, in a big city I had never been to before, without a phone. After a couple hours wandering the streets and asking random stores if I could borrow their phones, I was finally able to meet up with everyone.

After that I had a great time. We took a trip to the world's largest department store, called Shinsegae Mall, which had over ten floors of clothes as well as its own ice rink inside. That night we joined the crowds and crowds of people that had also come to Busan for this event and watched the fireworks display on Gwangalli Beach. It was amazing- insane fireworks set to great background music. The rain even stopped just in time. This particular Saturday ended up being one of the two largest shows of the event in which USA, Japan, Poland, and China went head to head with four seperate 15 minute displays to prove who reigned supreme in the art of pyrotechnics.

Besides the insane crowds and the fact that the weekend ended up with three of us Geoje residents splitting a 120,000 won taxi home (as all the busses were full hours before) it was a wonderful experience! It is fun to do these different events knowing that I am only spending one full year here, and may never be back, so these truly are once in a lifetime expereinces.

Inside the Shinsegae mall looking up