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!