Halloween& other stuff

So, Halloween in Korea.  Well, the truth is, they don't celebrate Halloween in Korea.  They know about it, but they don't really know about it at all.  All they know is that it is a holiday where people dress up.  But the student council at my school decided that they were going to throw a Halloween party this year (in honor of Alyssa and I, but also just for the students)

Well, they did their research well, because it was an awesome Halloween Party, and very American.  Except for the Karaoke contest and Arm Wrestling contest.  And most of them dressed up, and some of them went all out.  It was so much fun ^^  There were different activities in the different rooms, and you could go on this "scary" walk around the school in the dark, and people jumped out at you.  Similar to stuff people do in America.  There was also face painting and all that stuff.  I'll upload pictures to facebook!  And they really went all out in their decorations.  It was awesome :)  Alyssa and I contributed candy that we bought at Costco.

This week on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and part of today (Thursday), I didn't go to class xD  Instead, I joined the art teacher and a small crew of students (the ones who don't want to go to class, there are about 6 or 7 of us), and built the stairs all day for those days.  We started working on the stair a long time ago, but we didn't crack down on it until this week.  So instead of going to class I have been laboring and playing with cement.  But it's really wonderful, because I get to spend the time chatting in Korean.  And while in class I am "the foreigner", when I am laboring I am just another set of hands.  And I'm pretty good at it too xD  Now if only I could be as good at knitting as I am at building stairs....

One of the girls got our school involved in this project where we knit hats for babies in Africa, so this week half the kids have been knitting 24/7 xD  I'm bad at it T.T

The Dog Cafe

So, I did a lot this weekend.   But the point that I would like to highlight with this blog post is what I did on Thursday with my friend.  The dog café.

                We didn’t have school on Thursday and Friday this week, due to incoming Freshmen orientation, so I went home with a friend to Seoul for a few days.  She knew that I loved dogs, and she likes dogs too, so we decided to go to this dog café in Myeongdong.  Basically what it is, is a mediocre café that serves you a drink, and you go and sit at a table, and around the room that is the café there are 20 dogs wandering around.  Some of them are cute, some are not, and at the beginning they show you the dog “menu” which has all the names, and they tell you which ones are dangerous to pet.  Why they have dogs that are dangerous to touch in a dog cafe, I will never understand. 

                Anyways, about 20 minutes after we got there, these two dogs start fighting. I know dogs, and I know when they are seriously fighting, and these dogs were getting at it.  They had to be pulled apart, but it was seriously chaotic because all the dogs were barking and going crazy.  It was normal though I guess, none of the staff seemed to care.

                This is where the dog lover in me comes out—this is absolutely not an okay establishment.  The dogs live 20 to one room that is about twice the size of my bedroom in the states, and they never get out.  They relieve themselves right there in the café, where it is not only not sanitary for the dogs, but also for the people who are enjoying their drinks only to find that a dog is peeing by their chair.

                The dogs don’t all get along; they fight with each other—making it dangerous for not only the dogs, but also the people in the café.   And all the dogs are fed in communal food/water bowls, which just gives them reason to fight.

                And also, the dogs get NO rest.  One of the dogs came up to me and I pet it, then it jumped up on my lap and slept for an hour.  They are constantly being harassed by the people in the café, who seem to not care at all (and don’t know how to pick up a dog—if you don’t know how to pick up a dog, don’t improvise).  That is one thing that I have to mention, is that Korean people have a completely different perspective on dogs than Americans do.  It is not uncommon to be walking down the street and see a dog chained to a fence on a chain that is like 3 feet long.  They just don’t care about dogs here.  So in reality, the lives that the dogs are getting at the dog café are better than the alternative lives that they could be having.  But both are sad.  I will upload pictures to my facebook--it is being really slow to upload them here.

What's new

Starting last weekend, my host family was not able to host me anymore.  So, as of this Monday, I have been living in the school dormitories with the rest of the second grade girls.  While I was a little surprised and concerned at first about not having a host family, I am so excited to be living in the dorms.  But, as I know others in America are still concerned about it, I’ll share about my first night in the dorms.

Monday night, the nuns took Alyssa and I to get Chicken.  We had a chicken party ^^  

Then, we dropped Alyssa off at her apartment, then went on to Jochiwon.  While Sister Camilla talked to my host mom for about an hour, Sister Noella and I finished packing my stuff (I had packed it all over the weekend) and we just hung out and joked around.  Then we left, and on the way back to school we picked up a bunch of ice cream.

I’ve been sleeping at school every Wednesday, so this wasn’t the first time for me to come to stay there for a night.  But still, when I arrived on Monday night after getting all my stuff, I walked in the door with the nuns and the girls were all like “Emma!!!  Welcome to Pada!!!!”  They were all really excited I was there, which made me feel a lot better.  Since my host family situation pretty much made me feel like nobody wanted me, having all the girls is wonderful.  Anyways, they had cleared up a desk for me, and my own little closet/wardrobe thing. 

The way it works is that there is one main room (called Pada—or Beach in English), and two small rooms for the 2^nd year girls.  Pada is the room I live in, and it has a common area, bathrooms, 2 bedrooms and a shower/laundry room.  Every night when we have reading/diary time, all the girls come to Pada, even the girls who live in the other two rooms (Star and Sky).   In the 2 bedrooms at Pada, 5 girls live in each room.  In the two smaller rooms, 2 people live in one and 3 people live in the other.  We have our desks, and at night time we lay our blankets on the floor and sleep there.

9:00pm every night is when the girls are supposed to be back in the rooms, and 9:30 is cleaning time.  Then, at 10:00 we have reading/diary time, and on nights when the best teacher is in charge of us, we all sit around and each talk about our days, or some other topic.  Last night, we turned off the lights, lit candles, and had time for everyone to talk about something they are sorry about doing.  It was very stereotypical big emotional confession time, but it was very nice.

So, since last night was my first night here, the nuns had me bring ice cream as sort of a “I’m moving in—here’s a gift” sort of thing.  So after our group time, we all went into one of the rooms and ate ice cream and bread that the teacher had bought for us.  It was so much fun J  Then we all sat around and chatted until 1AM, when I finally went to bed.

Being here is so much less stress than having a host family.  I’m sure I will be sick of having no time alone every once in a while, but it’ll be alright.

Also, the weekends here, everyone goes home.  I obviously don’t have a home to go to.  So I’m still not sure how that’s going to work.  But other than that, all is well!

Andong!

This weekend I went with friends to stay with her mom in Andong, which is known as the Cultural Capital of Korea.  Right now the annual Korean Mask Dance festival is being held there, so I saw a lot of mask dancing!  It was really interesting, and I had a really good time with my friends.  We also went to the Ha-Hoe village, which is like the Connor Prairie of Korea, except people still live there.  Anyways, I have a lot of pictures, so you can check them out on facebook or by using this link:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150741123720162.722388.539770161&l=8a7d1f31eb&type=1

My old apartment!

My apartment in Incheon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbobzpnDRRk

My apartment!

My apartment in Jochiwon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SV0_wAzSUYw

What goes on.

Since the last update, most of what’s going on here has just been the normal routine of going to school every day.  But thanks to my awesome school, every day at school is different and interesting.  Last week, one random day they were just like “We don’t have classes for the first 3 hours, we have special activities.”  So some kids were in the “movie-watching” activity, some kids were in the “carving totem-poles” activity, some kids were in the playing pocket-ball (their word for pool) activity, and I was in the science experiment activity.  So we made soap using Sodium Hydroxide and oil.  And we also pricked our fingers and tested our blood type.  I LOVE MY HIGH SCHOOL!

Last weekend, I traveled to Jeonju to sit for the TOPIK exam.  That’s Test of Proficiency in Korean.  The exam in itself was ridiculously boring, but the trip to Jeonju was nice.  Well, mostly.  By the time Alyssa and I were on the bus home, we were extremely happy to be going back.  It’s difficult, after only interacting with each other for so long, to get used to having to interact with a whole team of other people.  People who don’t speak English don’t count.  Don’t get me wrong, it was really nice to hang out and catch up with the other kids from the program, but it was tiring.  Alyssa and I are such good friends, that there is no acting or putting up a false face, like people do when they are with company that they aren’t close with. 

Anyways, the reason that Jeonju is famous is because it has this traditional Korean “hanok” villiage.  A hanok is a traditional Korean house.  Audra and Eunice live in Jeonju, so some kids from their school came and gave us tours of the area (they got community service hours for it xD)  After that, we hung out for a while.  It was really nice to be with my teacher from Seoul again.

We were on the bus back from Jeonju, realizing that we didn’t really know how we were getting back from the bus station.  I called my mom, but my parents were going to mass so they couldn’t come get us, and Alyssa’s host mom doesn’t have a car.  I thought we would be taking busses to our respective towns (which is scary—busses in Seoul are predictable and their routes are simple and always the same.  Busses here are few and very infrequent.)  But then my host mom called and was like “I called the taxi ajeosshi!  He will come pick you up in Cheongju!”  We were so relieved.  It’s pretty nice having a personal driver that you don’t have to pay for xD

Starting last week, every Wednesday night we spend at school.  Alyssa stays in the first year girls’ room, and I stay with the second year girls.  It’s really fun to stay there, but I can’t say it’s the most restful night of sleep J  At 9:00, they have to go to their rooms.  They clean their rooms and get ready until 10:00, which is when they have “writing in their diary/reading” time, which they also use to chat.  Last Wednesday, the dorm “mom”, who is one of the female teachers, came in and was like, “Is this what Emma came to Korea to watch?”  And so we went around in a circle and talked about our days, which was nice.  At 11:00, the lights turn out, but all the girls have lights on their desks for studying, so it isn’t a problem or anything.  Then they stay up chatting until 1 or 2 in the morning. 

Last Friday was our class “picnic”.  Starting from middle school, Korean students have one class picnic every semester.  I think maybe it’s like some sort of compromise—the schools keep the students until 11 PM every night, making them ridiculously stressed and giving them no time to relax, and in return the school provides one day of fun each semester.  Doesn’t sound like a fair trade to me!  But anyways, my school is fun every day, so I guess I shouldn’t be the one complaining.

So for our picnic, my class took a bus to Seoul and went to Everland, which is an amusement park.  Unfortunately, I only rode two rides before my stomach felt absolutely awful, so the day could have gone better.  But anyways, it was a pretty fun day.  It was nice to be able to hang out with the friends from my class all day.  Even though my school is more relaxed than most, there is still a pretty definitive line between the way students act when they are at school and when they aren’t.  That’s another reason I love staying over on Wednesday nights.  After school is over, the girls are so much more silly, relaxed, and fun.

I guess that’s all for now!  I haven’t really done anything this weekend (except go mountain climbing with my parents) and I don’t have plans yet for next weekend, so I might not have anything to write about for a while.  We’ll see :P

Chuseok

As you may know, this last weekend was Chuseok, which is typically known to Americans as the Harvest Festival, or the “Korean Thanksgiving.” Let me start by talking about what Chuseok is.  It’s date is determined by the lunar calendar (this year it was September 12^th), but it is traditionally a 3 day event.  The meaning of Chuseok is to thank your ancestors for the plentiful harvest. 

So, we started out our Chuseok celebration on Sunday.  I woke up and helped my mom (as much as she would let me)  prepare some of the food that we were bringing to my host uncle’s house.  That’s another thing:  for Chuseok, you always celebrate at the house of the oldest male in the family (on the paternal side).  My host dad has an older brother, so we went to his house.  In Alyssa’s case, her host dad is the oldest male, so people came to her house.  Anyways, we started out the morning by preparing food to bring.  We made these yummy little fish things that were slices of fish covered in flour, and then this egg and vegetable stuff, then pan fried.  I want to make it when I come back to America! 

After Jiwon and Jonghyun finally woke up and got ready to go, it was already 4 PM xD  So we started out on the road to Daejeon, where my host uncle and his family live.  It only takes us about a half hour to get there, so it was a half hour of me being nervous (okay, I have to pause here and say that while I was just trying to type “me being”  I typed “meing”.  LOL .  This is a new sort of contraction xD).  Anyways, I was really nervous about meeting so many new people, especially at an event as traditional as Chuseok.

We got to their apartment, and they were all very nice.  My host cousins consist of a boy that’s like 28, a girl that’s 24, and a boy that’s 20.  So they are all older than me, Jonghyun, and Jiwon.  The 28 year old cousin I had met once before, when he came and took us on a drive around a mountain about a month ago.  So when I got there, I pretty much just talked to him for a while, since he also speaks pretty good English.  I’ve met him twice, but I’m feel way closer to him than I do to Jiwon.  The girl also speaks English really well—she studied in California for 6 months. 

We ate this huge dinner in the typical Korean style—everybody gets a bowl of rice and a bowl of soup, and then there are about 10 different dishes in the middle of the table that everyone shares.  These are called “Pan-chan”, and the English translation is “side dish”, but I don’t really think there is an English equivalent.  These dishes range from standard Kimchi, to beef, fish, eggplant, beans…etc.  They aren’t really side dishes, as they are the main meal, but there are only small dishes of each that everyone eats a little of everything.  Though I will say that the small dishes hold a lot more meat than you’d think.  It seems like you everyone eats out of it all dinner and the amount never diminishes!

After dinner, my oldest host cousin proposed that we go out and see a little of Daejeon, so the 6 of us (the cousins, me, Jonghyun, and Jiwon) went to this big park.  Anyways, my cousin and I walked around this pretty little park and garden area, and it was really nice.  After we got back to the car, we all went to Noraebang, which was fun, but sort of awkward.  Noraebang (Karaoke room) is really really fun if you go with friends, but when you go with people you don’t know it’s awkward.  It was still a good time though, and better than if we had been at home, because we would have just been watching TV with the parents.   After Noraebang, we went to the Coffee Shop and hung out for a bit.  Then we went back to my cousins apartment, and I taught them how to play Skip-Bo.  It really helped that the girl cousin speaks English xD  They all had a really fun time playing it, and they all got really into trying to win.  We played 3 games.  Even Jiwon thought it was fun.  Then I played cards a little bit with Jonghyun and the cousin that is his age, and then we went to sleep.

On the morning of Chuseok, we woke up at about 7 (after going to sleep at past 2 xD) and the females all helped prepare all the food.  My host mom and aunt had been awake since 5:30AM preparing it ><  The food is all arranged on these little pedestal dishes and placed on a low table that is placed in front of this big screen with stuff written on it.  I didn’t take any pictures, as this is a family ritual and I didn’t know if it would be okay.  It probably would have been, but I’m usually too nervous about it to ask.

Once we got all the food set out, the ceremony started.  I sat and watched, with my host mom and my host aunt.  Because they aren’t descendants of the paternal family, they don’t participate.  Yet they aren’t allowed to go to their own homes on Chuseok and give thanks to their ancestors, because they have to prepare everything for the males.  That goes back to the tradition that the female becomes part of the male family after marriage.  Anyways, my host uncle and host dad led the ceremony thing, and it basically consisted of this really rigid structure of bowing and then pouring some drink, then bowing and placing chopsticks on certain food, then bowing more.  And there was incense.  It was really interesting to watch, because there really is nothing like it in America.  This ritual is performed three times a year-  on Chuseok, the Lunar New Year, and the anniversary of the death of the father of the oldest male.  So, on November 20^th, the anniversary of my host dad’s father’s death, we will go to Daejeon again and do the same ritual again.  Well, they’ll go, I’ll be in Seoul.

After the ritual was finished, we ate the food and sat and talked for a bit, and then the men watched TV, while the females all washed the dishes and cleaned up.  This reminds me American holidays xD 

After we finished that, we left to go to the tomb of my host dad’s father.  It was an hour and a half away.  When we got there, they put a dried fish on his tomb, poured soju, then did the bowing thing.  After that, we went to a little picnic table and ate a lot of fruit.  Then, we said goodbye and went home.

Now is the third day of Chuseok, which is the day of rest J