Festivals

Sports Day
I haven't counted, but sometimes get the distinct impression that I have in fact had more days of 'vacation' than of actual teaching. The first week or two were, until last week, the only full weeks of work in the classroom I'd had, and those consisted more of introducing myself to the students than actual teaching. The week following Chuseok (itself only a 2-day work week) was the shortest yet: I taught only on Tuesday, and even then only some of my classes. Class on Monday was canceled, though I was not made aware of this until I showed up to work that morning, so I sat in my office for 8 hours with no clue as to whether I should be preparing for class the next day or simply surfing the internet (in the end, I wrote a blog entry).

The reason for all of the cancellations (the weeks before were riddled with them as well) was to practice for the mysterious Sports Day, an event I had been told was equivalent to Field Day back in the United States, though it always seemed strange to me that one would need to 'practice' for a day of capture-the-flag and relay races. It turns out that the real essence of Sports Day lies somewhere between Field Day, a recital, a school play, and an open house.

The Wednesday that it was held on was a holiday, but my attendance was compulsory. I was told that I would have Thursday off, though I was already obligated to attend an EPIK conference that day. I do not resent attending Sports Day, as it turned out to be a very unique opportunity to see Korean culture, as well as get in the good graces of everyone from the students to the faculty to the PTO. Many parents attended on the day of the event, and the opening ceremonies involved much fanfare, including the detonation of a pair of gunpowder tubes that were apparently taped up right above my head...

The requisite races were run, along with the standard tug of war (though I did find the competition on the rope between the old married women quite amusing). However, there were also musical performances and dance routines done by the kids and teachers, and two martial arts performances, one of which was a kung fu or wushu routine with real swords and spears (I can't even imagine 3rd graders jumping around with weapons in America), and the other was a taekwondo demonstration. Well, kind of. Watch the video below. My camera picked up a lot of the crowd screaming so in case you can't tell, the background music is Billie Jean.



The entire event lasted from 9 am until 4 pm, meaning that I was quite sunburned at the end of it all. One of the final events was a race in which 5 students would run around the track, and a posterboard was held up which had (in Korean of course) a physical description of a person on it, such as "old woman" or "male teacher". The kids would have to grab someone from the crowd encircling the track and finish the race running hand in hand with that person. I ran around 5 times, answering (or being told to answer) to the call-ups of 'handsome guy', 'big head', 'smart person', and 'S-line figure'- meaning well-shaped woman... The students and parents seemed to really like that I participated, apparently something that no foreign teacher had done in the past there, and I guess that as long as everyone likes me, I've got a bit more job security, a fact which is somewhat of a comfort every time I teach (or rather, fail at teaching) my solo class... those kids are brutal.

Some pictures of Namgwang Sports Day:


Longest tug-of-war that I've ever seen: 150 vs. 150


The kids raced down the back of their classmates.


What would a festival be without festival food. Here is a double-fried corndog, so thick that the first time I had one the middle was cold even after being deep-fried for half a minute



Hittin' the Bang

That night, I was taken out to eat with the entire faculty group as well as the heads of the PTO, and yet again, it was samgyeupsal and other fatty pork. Following dinner (and more than a fair share of soju), I went with the teachers out to a Korean karaoke, called a noraebang (pronounced nohr-ay-bong). Koreans have a tradition where they will offer you soju from their own cup, which it is apparently rude to refuse (there are few who are harder drinkers than the Koreans). So, after far to many 'shared shots', I arrived at the noraebang, my face burning red and my head spinning. I came in just a bit after the others had arrived, and thus walked into a party already in progress; I was greeted with the sight of my principal- a short, old, and seemingly dour man- clutching a microphone, jumping on a couch, and beating on a tabletop with his removed shoe.

After getting such positive feedback for participating in Sports Day, I felt incredible pressure to relent and give into the teachers' demand that I sing a song. I certainly needed to sober up just a bit before I did, as my heart was racing and I didn't think that continuing to drink would help me. Eventually, I settled on the Beatles, thinking they were both easy enough to sing and popular enough for this crowd. There has been little up to this point as surreal for me as singing Hey Jude to a room full of middle-aged Asians. They even sang the na-na-na-na chorus.

G'Day Mate?
The 1st Annual Jeju International English Festival was held that Friday and Saturday, and attendance was, that's right, mandatory. We were asked to volunteer for a spot in the festival, to work at the booth set up to represent our nations, or to serve as a judge in one of many competitions. I asked to be a judge in the "King Of Debate" contest, and was instead told that I would be working in the Australia booth, explaining, to the many hundreds of kids that would come, all that I knew about Australia... a country I've never been to. I guess the logic was that because I was white, I should have a working knowledge about all white countries? I found this reverse stereotype kind of amusing, and I know that a lot of Americans (or Australians, for that matter) may make the same assumption about Asians, so I decided to go along with it and try to make the best of it.

So, it turns out that there were a few inaccuracies in the booths, with this costume hanging in the back of the Australia tent...


The other main attraction in the tent was a hula hoop, which, according to Wikipedia, was suggested to the American company Wham-o by an Australian, but that's kind of stretching it... I mean, they couldn't find anything else? A boomerang, a digeridoo, a can of Fosters, nothing?

The America tent was fun, though it had quite a few inaccuracies of it's own. We put on an assortment of American music, mostly Iggy Pop or Lou Reed, though I really enjoyed the Slayer CD we found lying around, which made good background music for the kids trying on hats.

One of the more blatant lies:


The strange Anti-Nixon poster which appeared 4 times around the booth:



All in all, the festival was a good chance to see a lot of the southside Jeju people who rarely make it up from Seogwipo. We had a good couple of nights of going out with the whole group, including visiting a well-over-capacity hole in the wall bar to watch England beat Australia in the Rugby Cup semifinals, and a really, really late-night (4:30 am) trip to McDonalds. And I learned a rather important lesson from all of this:

Never call your friends back home after a long night out. You may be struggling to form full sentences, but they are eating breakfast and in no way similarly impaired.