Korea Life Blog - Children's Day (Eorini Nal)


Tomorrow is Children's Day in Korea and it is, believe it or not, a national holiday. While the idea of the holiday is as the name suggests, to celebrate the wonderful(?) gift of children, in reality the celebration is about having the day off. Thanks, kids! Julie's coming over and we're going to practice making children. Practice, practice, practice, for that far, far, far off day...



Yay, tomorrow's a holiday. Let's play game. Let's run around and scream and drive the foreign teacher bonkers. The little girl to the left is Windy's daughter, "Gina." She's really cute and just loves to call me ajushi (older man). The girl in the front never leaves me alone. She loves to grab my stomach and call me ddong bae (pot belly) teacher right before she jumps on me and/or punches me as hard as possible. The girl in he glasses is adorable, but her parents need to control her sugar intake. She can't sit still for a minute.



Well, with it being Children's day and all the boss's wife spends the day cooking up deok-boki (how can I explain what this is to somebody who doesn't know...impossible!).



Take a look for yourself. Now that I'm looking at it, I can only imagine what I would have thought of it had I never been to Korea and tasted it. It would look disgusting probably...yet now it looks so normal. Actually I never really liked dokbokki all that much. I mean, I enjoy it and it's pretty good, I just don't see what the national craze is. You can buy this outside at the street vendors pretty much anywhere. The boss's wife makes it exceptionally well and I ate quite a bit along with the kids.




Two little nightmares. You'd think it would be the one on the left, but it's the one on the right who has the biggest mouth in Korea. His voice screeches like nails across a chalkboard. He always comes from the kum-do (martial art form) school 30 minutes before class and loves to run around the halls and classrooms yelling and whacking people with that weapon in his hand. You'd think the Korean teachers would force him to leave that at the doorway, yet they just look on smiling as if he is so cute whacking the foreign teacher in the back. Hurray for kids, whoo hoo!



I'm a softy for little girls. I love the one in front. I was going to say the one in the ugly green outfit, but then I noticed four or five of them are wearing the same outfits. In fact, I've seen almost every kid one time or another wearing them and I'm not at all sure why. It must have something to do with elementary school. Anyway, back to the girl in front. Her English name is Bonnie. She's taken Fiona's place as my favorite student. The Korean teachers think Bonnie is ugly because of her nose which is a little flat. Sometimes I can't understand their thinking. To me she is utterly adorable and has increased my belief in people cloning.



These kids are pretty good. They are quiet. The one in the "perfect" shirt is a "perfect attendant". He's been so sick, practically gagging to death for the past week, yet he still comes, coughing all over me and the other kids. Of course, that's a societal problem. Either his parents don't want him to miss even a day of studying, or they have full time jobs in which, like most jobs in Korea, they can't miss work under any circumstance and they have nobody to watch their children. The girl to the right (in the ugly green outfit again) needs some help. She's too thin and always wanders off in daydreams sometimes to the point of drooling. I asked the Korean teachers about it, but they just shrug cluelessly. She attends several hagwons, so maybe she's stressed out from too much studying.


Anyway, that's it about Children's Day! Hey kids - thanks for existing. I have the day off because of you. Hurray!