Chuseok, round 2, Part 1

Last year Chuseok was the first Korean holiday I experienced. This year had several similarities, but the differences were more obvious to me.

On Thursday Oct 1st, my kids (all except one) wore hanbok, the traditional Korean clothing. Most of the hanbok looked about the same as it did last year. They were all pretty elaborate, and the accessories and color schemes were about the same.

We had a few activities scheduled for the morning, as it was a half day. The first thing we did was make songpyeon, which is a traditional Korean rice snack. Last year, we used clay and my co-teacher showed the students how to make it. This year, we actually made the real thing, and my kids were able to take them home to give to their parents, and eat store-bought ones for snack.

Alison showing them how to make the songpyeon.

Michelle and her colored glutinous rice. Yummy...

After that, we made traditional treasure boxes, which were supposed to be from hanji - a traditional Korean hand-made paper. However, Miss Alison tried to make the box the day before, and it took her almost three hours to do. So we decided to make the physical boxes for them, and just give them paper and Korean clip-art to decorate them with.

Decorating their boxes started out rather organized,

But it became rather unorganized very quickly.

So - instead of me trying to clean up the massive mess they had created, I made them clean up after themselves, hanbok and all.

And the last activity of the the day was dancing the Gang-gang-su-lae. We did that last year as well, but it was just in our own classrooms, and my co-teacher was in charge of it, since of course I had no idea how to dance it. This year, in musical class that week they had learned how to dance it along with music. Then the entire school got in one big circle (our school is shaped like a donut), and we all (meaning the kids, not me), did the dance to the music all the way around the school.

And then we sent them on their merry way home. We were able to leave at 12:30, and so I headed to a restaurant with some co-workers for lunch. We went to a really nice Indian restaurant that I probably won't be able to go to again, since their lunch menu is the only affordable thing there.

And then I went home to pack for my own three day vacation in Ijak-do, an island off the west coast of Seoul.