Silly Lorla Teacher

Sorry I've been leaving you all hanging for a week! I'm still loving it here- having fun and learning more every day!

Yesterday at Little America, it was field trip day for the Kindergarten classes. Chuseok is coming up next week for everyone here in Korea, which is similar to our Thanksgiving holiday. It celebrates the fall harvest as well as their ancestors. The holiday has a similar theme to our Thanksgiving- enjoying great food and family. Part of the Chuseok tradition here includes the donning of traditional clothing called Hanbok. These outfits are made out of vibrant colored fabric and have a certain style to them. The girls wear long skirts and short vests/jackets on top, while the boys have parachute-like pants with long sleeve shirts and vests. Seeing the students all wearing their Hanboks was such an incredible experience. They all looked so amazing!

The field trip took us to a building in Incheon where several older women taught the students how to traditionally bow and drink tea during Chuseok celebrations and other traditional Korean ceremonies. The students sat on little mats and listened while the women explained the traditions and customs. They behaved SO well considering the field trip was not the most exhilarating or stimulating event in the world. There was no long cartoon involving mustached-worms or anything like that (see previous post if suddenly completely lost).

The boys have their own specific bow from the girls. The women showed both groups how to bow correctly and had them practice in front of the group. It was so sweet to see my little Texas class bowing!

After all the bowing, the students learned how to drink tea correctly. You hold the cup with two hands- one on the cup and the other underneath it. At first, they got to taste some green tea leaves. There was an overwhelming negative response to the taste of the leaves, which I believe is personified perfectly by this young man right here...

Not the best reaction if I say so myself haha. I did not try the leaves but the green tea after it was prepared was actually delicious! I'll leave the leaf-tasting to the kids. So the students ate and drank their tea and mochi, it was picture time. One thing about Little America is that for each field trip or special day, each student needs to have at least 204853 pictures of them to put on the website so that families can have them. So, each student was placed at the table setting in the room to get a picture taken. While this never-ending task was being completed, the rest of the students suddenly snapped. All sense of organization and structure was completely lost and there were kindergarteners EVERYWHERE! Flashes of bright colors and flowing fabric streaked passed the other teachers and I until they were brought under control by the Korean teachers. It reminded me that they are real kids and not some strange robots from a different planet who sit nicely for hours on end.

After we said our goodbyes to the nice old ladies, we drove to a park nearby. This park had students learning about the traditions and culture of Korea including food, dress, and games. There were probably 10 other school groups there, meaning thousands and thousands of Korean student groups each dressed in a different uniform. Our group was the only one dressed in Hanboks. I felt badly for our kids because not only was it difficult to play properly dressed like that- it was hot too! Students began to hand me various items of clothing to hold. I was tempted to make my own Hanbok out of the provided material but thought better of it. At the park we made some brown sugar snack and rice-crispy-treat-like snacks, and took loads more pictures.

Overall the day was exhausting but I really learned a lot and loved seeing my students all dressed up! Not sure how much they liked it, but sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do. They do enjoy the bus rides where they play a Dory-like game of i-spy (uhh something small...and orange...has stripes...) except the popular answer now instead of just "Lorla Teacher" is "Silly Lorla Teacher". I am somewhat to blame for this recent change because of my common use of the phrase during class when I accidentally forget or miss something in class. Could be a worse nickname I suppose so I'm not too bothered by it.

For now-Silly Lorla teacher needs to get to work! Headed into Seoul this weekend to watch some of my students in a Speech contest as well as just explore the area with some other teachers. I will update you all again soon!

Korean word of the post: 이른 아침 (ee-reuhn ah-cheem): early morning

xoxox