Christmas Celebrations

 Christmas away from home is never ideal. In Korea, for Christmas, you only get one day off. So, I had to take my one day vacation and make it as fantastic as possible. The morning started with a mega skype session and crepes. Crepes are Hodulik family tradition for Christmas eve. So, when I was skyping my Christmas morning, it was their christmas evey, and it totally qualified. I skyped with almost all the Hoduliks by reaching out to both Vermont and Pennslyvania.

 We made good use of the Selfie Stick to get picture with the whole family...in the computer.

 After Skype, I went on a baking marathon. My lovely siblings had sent me some cookie mix packages and since this was my only day off, I decided to bake them ALL! It was...a lot of baking for the next few hours. Here are my sugar cookies and Olivier made a Buche de Noel. We were going to a potluck Christmas party so we both decided to make dessert.

 

 My Sugar Cookies

 His Bouche de Noel. 

 

The party was pretty cool. We had pizza, falafel, chicken, potatoes, and a few other dishes. There was a balloon artist who kept making really big hats. We even had a "White Elephant" gift exchange at the end. Despite really wanting the plant, I got a lint roller. Well, that's always useful!

The next day, I was back at school and it was time for celebration. Many classes were doing their end of the year parties. A few classes invited me to theirs. Here are my 2-6 students doing a "Miss Korea" pageant. The girls broke up into teams and chose a few boys to turn into Miss Korea. Here are the results. 

  

 They revealed one by one to astounding cheers!

 

All of the boys in a group shot.

 Owning their makeovers!

 While many of the kids were celebrating, there were a few students who were very stressed out. I had chosen 5 groups of kids to do a live presentation for their entire grade. During the semester, we had done a 5 minute presentation and a 5-10 minute drama. The students wrote and performed their own material. The presentation was about Korean culture and the drama was supposed to be loosely based on Halloween. When the vice principal told me we had to do an hour long presentation, I chose the 5 best groups. It ended up being 3 presentations and two dramas.

Since I would be on stage and controlling the powerpoints, I could not take photos. I gave my camera to one of my students. I got it back with many selfies from before the presentation.

 

Here are the photos from the performances, I gave each group a small introduction, so there's me.  

The first presentation was "Korean Ghosts." My two students, Jae Young and Seung Hyeon, made a Prezi. First, they introduced ghosts and monsters from many countries. Then, they talked about some traditional and modern Korean Ghosts.

 

 The next group was "Popular Korean Names Over the Years." KyeongRae and HyeonYeong looked at different names over the decades and why they were popular at that time. 

 The third presentation was "Korean Folktales." They looked at 2 main folktales. One was KongGi PatGi, which is similar to Cinderella. The other one was Simcheong. They were trying to show themes that are universal in all cultures and some that made Korea special.

 Then, it was onto the dramas. The first drama was originally called, "The Night of Halloween," but in honor of the holiday, it became "The Night of Christmas." The story was really funny. One girl can stop time and she uses her magic power to beat up her friend and frame her other friend for the injury. Then, she steals her friends boyfriend.

The girl with the magic powers, "BangSuk"

The girls buy their costumes for the "Christmas Party." Yeah, this was better in the Halloween party version.

 

The rich and handsome boyfriend...with broad shoulders. He entered the stage throwing around 50,000 won notes. 

 

The stupid police officers collecting evidence. 

Here's Bangsuk waving her magic wand to stop time. She switches the evidence to frame Jieun and totally confuses the "stupid police officers."

Minji demanding the police arrest the criminal!

Taehwan discovering the beautiful Bangsuk and leaving Minji!

The last scene is Minji asking, "Am I alone on Christmas?" Since Christmas is a romantic holiday, this is a horrible fate for poor Minji! 

The last drama kept their Halloween theme, although they added a lot more jokes. The drama was called "Return Human Project." Basically, a mad scientist created a candy that can turn a ghost into a human. Also, he lives next door to Dracula, Frankenstein, and Chucky. He offers them the chance to turn into a human. 

The opening scene to the play.

The mad scientist, Myeonghun, created the candy.

Chucky playing with a toy...while creepily singing BINGO.

 

Dracula says "Give it to me!!" which makes everyone on do the dance to the hit song!

 And here are the students enjoying the program! 

 

Here's everyone after the performances~! 

 And some posed shots!

Halloween (Last Year)

Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays. When I was little, I used to maximize my candy by hopping in the car between houses. Halloween in VT was quite cold, so it helped when you had a father who would drive you the short distance to make sure you didn't freeze in your devil outfit. Or, sometimes to stop yourself from freezing, even a costume that traditionally used a skirt suddenly had the addition of ski pants...

Anyway, even after trick or treating ended (at quite a late age, I am proud to say), I was almost as excited with college Halloween. I mean, did you know you can have 4 costumes in college and it will be normal? This was the stage in my life when I realized that rather than getting free candy, I would lose money through Halloween. Unfortunately, those 10 dollar Charlotte Russe heels that you NEED for a costume (that you will totally wear again) still costed 10 dollars. Oh, and of course, you can't reuse heels from costume to costume. Yes, this might be the most girly thing I've really ever written...

So when I arrived in Korea, where they have a holiday dedicated to giving free chocolate on 11/11 but NO HALLOWEEN, I was presented with the challenge of how to properly display this holiday to my students. How could I accurately present this amazing and important holiday of gluttony and trashy costumes?

Well...I'm not sure how well I taught my kids about halloween, BUT they certainly got a lot of candy out of the bargain and (I think) they had a lot of fun. Basically, I created what I called, "The Halloween Games." Luckily, there was no systematic murder of students. Then, I would have called it Battle Royale.

The games started with everyone's favorite Christmas/Halloween mashup, the "Nightmare Before Christmas." I showed it in both English and Korean because...screw it, trick or treat. They got points for how many words they could write down about Halloween. And, I was generous when regarding what constituted as "about Halloween." Throughout the entire lesson, I was throwing candy at my kids. I am never surprised at how motivated students will get for sucking candy...but then I think about my reaction when anyone offers candy to this day and and surprised by my surprise.

Then, we did a costume guessing game. I scrounged the internet for some SFW Halloween costumes and used some of my A-OK ones. At first, they were skeptical and a little bored. Then, we got to the Ash and Pikachu costume. They were so mad at me when I wouldn't accept "Pocketmonster" as an answer. Nor would I accept "Chi-Yu," which is Ash's Korean name. I just wish I had found a LoL costume because that would have been HILARIOUS.

We did a few other fun games involving speed quizzes and charades (...woohoo...) Then, my favorite part. The mummy wrap. Some students got creative. Some kept it PG. All students seemed to have fun. 

Yes. I did get paid to watch/encourage my students to wrap themselves in toilet paper. No, I did not have to pay for the toilet paper, my school paid for it for me.

And, I didn't even have to clean up. See, my school doesn't have any toilet paper in the bathroom. The students collected it to reuse for...well when nature called. Bonus: Now, I have a secret stash of toilet paper that I can give to students so they don't have to barter with their friends when they run out.

Oh, I almost forgot the best part. While the "Halloween Games" ran throughout the week, I only dressed up for one day of the week. I was a Baeyoung High School student for Halloween. The reactions of the students/teachers were hilarious. I had the principal ask when they started accepting female students. One of my students called me his boyfriend. One student just demanded, repetitively, that I take the wig off because it looked too strange. My favorites were the students who came up to me and called me, "friend" and then invited me to the PC bang. Or to buy them bread. Or called me their "punching bag" because I was now their friend. 

Korean students treat each other strangely....

The friend comment - In Korea, the only people that you use the word "Friend" for are people that are your age. Anyone who is older or younger is brother or sister. For this reason, another student asked me what grade I was dressing up as, because it is important in Korea.