For the past few weeks my students have been studying different countries in the night class that I teach twice a week. We have talked about India, Brazil, Spain, the USA, Papua New Guinea and South Africa. On Thursday we concluded our lessons and so I challenged the students to give a presentation on one aspect of Korean culture. Each student had to pick a different topic and then make a picture and write a short speech. I promised that the student with the best presentation would receive a treat.

The students worked diligently on their presentations and gave great speeches. I think a few wanted to show off for the camera because they didn't use their real voices but tried to sound a bit older - which is why you can hear me laughing in the background of the video.

A few weeks ago I was invited, along with all my co-workers, to the wedding of the principal's son. At first I was a bit reluctant to commit to attending the wedding since it was on a Saturday and I treasure my personal time on the weekends because I feel so exhausted after a week at work.
However, I decided it would be an interesting opportunity and I said I would go, so early Saturday morning I joined my co-workers on a bus to Seoul. The wedding was held on the grounds of a small palace in central Seoul.

The wedding was very different from a Western wedding so I tried to take as many photos as was appropriate in order to share here. I'll try to explain clearly what's going on in the photos as was explained to me by one of my co-workers.

Upon arriving at the wedding we first went to this table pictured above on the left. This is where guests give their gift to the bride and groom which is traditionally an envelope of money. The men behind the table recorded the name of the guest and the amount given in a book. It was explained to me that these records are kept not so the bride and groom could send out thank you's but instead so their parents would know how much they would give at the weddings of the friends' and coworkers' children. I was told it was tradition for co-workers to give 50,000 won (~$45) however I only gave 30,000 won since 50,000 won seemed a bit much for a couple whom I had never met. 

On the right is one of a series of flower arrangements which were featured at the wedding. This arrangement was sent by the school at which I work. The other arrangements, all in the same style, were sent by family members and the owner of my school. The principal and his wife, both in hanbok which is traditional Korean dress, were standing in front of these arrangements and greeting guests as people arrived at the wedding.

After entering the palace courtyard I saw the bride in one of the rooms preparing for the wedding. She was then escorted to a chair in a small room off of the courtyard where guests could greet her. I asked if I could take her photo and she agreed, both she and the groom had lived in England for some time so she spoke English and so we chatted for a minute. The multi-colored coat she's wearing over her pink hanbok is embroidered with flowers and birds.

The groom entered the courtyard led by his friend who was also dressed in hanbok. He was led to a doorway where he kneeled and bowed a few times with the help of an aid. Though I could not see who was in the room I believe his parents were in there.

The bride and groom were led under a small awning where they kneeled in front of a table and with the aid of a helper participated in the rituals of the wedding. A man stood behind the table and read from a book while a local professor explained what was going on to the audience.

This video shows a portion of the ceremony which lasted approximately 30 some minutes. It would have been a bit shorter if the professor hadn't been explaining each step. The video is a bit washed out since the sun was shining directly at me but I think you can get an idea of the ceremony.

After the ritual was completed the bride and groom and immediate family left the area for a smaller more private ceremony. Guests had been given a meal ticket when they signed in and gave their money envelope so they proceeded to a small nearby restaurant where a traditional meal was served. This was the conclusion to the event and I proceeded to spend the rest of the afternoon in Seoul with my friend Kate.

My friend Melanie has a tradition on her blog where she posts a single photo every Friday with no words which illustrates a moment from the previous week. I felt inspired by the concept and decided to adopt it for my own blog. Each week I will post a single photo with no words from a moment in my life - either from the previous week or something or someone about which I've been thinking. A simple yet memorable image to share with everyone.

My students in my night class are quite curious about the world outside of Korea so I decided to teach them about different countries and cultures. A few weeks ago we started a series of lessons where we study a different country during each class. Our first lesson was on India of which I talked about in a previous post and shared a photo from our Diwali dinner. We have since studied Brazil, Spain and the USA. In my opinion food is an interesting way to learn about a country so I've brought in something for the students to try in each class. As I mentioned before we had a dinner with different types of curry for India, for Brazil we enjoyed avocado milk shakes and for the USA we had a few different popular Thanksgiving side dishes including stuffing and mashed potatoes.

For Spain I decided to teach the students how to make a very popular Spanish dish - tortilla espanola (more commonly called a  frittata). We spent the first 50 minutes of class reviewing a bit about Brazil (our previous lesson) and learning about Spain. The final 50 minutes were devoted to making the tortilla, an exercise which the boys seemed to really enjoy. They all crowded around the portable burner I brought to class and carefully added the ingredients per my instructions. A few students were especially interested in cooking and stayed by the burner stirring the potatoes and onions while the other students returned to their seats to watch videos on bull fighting.

The final product was a golden omelet which the boys all declared was quite tasty. Our final two lessons are on Papua New Guinea and South Africa which we will study this week before the students begin preparing for their final exams.

Last weekend I joined a few people from Jeomchon and members of the Andong Volunteer Association for the annual Andong Fall Festival. The fall festival is held for a local children's home where orphaned and abandoned children live.

The festival featured a variety of games for the kids after which the kids could take part in activities at different booths including face painting, balloon animals, temporary tattoos and leaf rubbing. It was a fun afternoon and the children really seemed to enjoy the event. Below are a few photos from the event.

My friend Melanie has a tradition on her blog where she posts a single photo every Friday with no words which illustrates a moment from the previous week. I felt inspired by the concept and decided to adopt it for my own blog. Each week I will post a single photo with no words from a moment in my life - either from the previous week or something or someone about which I've been thinking. A simple yet memorable image to share with everyone.

For the past month or so I've been spending my weekends preparing and freezing sauces and rothi, cooking pickles and blending chutneys all for my Diwali dinner. I have always enjoyed hosting dinners and potlucks but it's something I haven't done often here in Korea. However, Diwali has been a good excuse for me to try my hand at new curries and desserts and so I've hosted a large dinner for the past two years.

Last year my menu was limited by the constraints of  time, money and the size of my kitchen but this year I had a bit more of all three. I expanded my menu to 4 curries (chana masala, mixed vegetable sabji, pumpkin sabji and mattar paneer) dal, rice, rothi, momo, raitha, an assortment of pickles and chutneys, mango lassi and for dessert kheer, halwar ka gajar and laddoo. I admit that my menu was probably a bit too broad but it became a challenge to myself to prepare a delicious meal for 19 people from scratch - I even made the yogurt for the lassi!

Since I have substantially more room this year the dinner was a bit more comfortable with a serving area in the kitchen and tables set up in the bedroom with rangoli and diya which myself and a couple other waygook-in had made. Overall I think the dinner was a success - people seemed to have a good time and were able to get their fill of curry. Below are a few photos from the dinner -

As I mentioned in a previous post I teach 4 hours of after school class a week to 13 grade 1 students in high school. On the first day of class I asked students to write down things they would be interested in studying - and most of them said other cultures. After a few lessons on Halloween I decided to start a series of lessons I call "A Passport Around the World" - during each 2 hour long class we'd talk about a country on a different continent. We started off our first lesson on India which happened to coincide with Diwali, the festival of lights. Diwali is the biggest festival celebrated throughout India and I had already begun preparing feverishly for a private dinner I was hosting in honor of the holiday. Since my students have very limited exposure to other cultures I decided to bring in a tasting of Indian food for them. I wasn't surprised many of them didn't care for the curry since they rarely eat anything not Korean except for a few very Koreanized Western foods. And I was a bit disappointed that a couple of students seemed to have not even tried the food because they were put off by the strange appearance and smells.  However, I was really happy to hear that some of them enjoyed the food and saw that they had cleared their plates. What did surprise me was that at the end of class a few of the students came up and thanked me for the food and that they appreciated the new experience.

Last Friday the first and second grade high school students and teachers took a trip up to Seoul to the popular amusement park Lotte World. However, before we arrived at the park we made a short stop at one of Seoul's universities for a quick photo-op. I was quite confused by the ridiculously brief visit to the university and asked a co-teacher about it. Her answer was that the provincial education office of Gyeongsangbuk-do had provided money for the buses for the students to visit the university. Therefore the picture was needed as "proof" of the visit. I was extremely abhorred that the school was basically committing fraud - using the money intended for transportation for students to visit colleges and instead was spent on transportation to Lotte World.

The trip itself wasn't quite what I had expected. Perhaps I was a bit too idealistic but when I first heard about it I was hoping to spend some time getting to know my students outside of school but instead discovered that on such trips the teachers for the most part stayed together - eating lunch, drinking alcohol and walking around while the students were free to do as they liked in the amusement park. The amusement park itself was surprisingly small - it consisted of a stage, a couple of restaurants and stores and a few tame rides inside and maybe 4-5 rides outside. It certainly wasn't Six Flags or anything of the sort. However, the weather was beautiful and it was a really nice day to spend outside. After the trip we stopped for dinner on the way back at a buffet and finally returned back at Hamchang at 7:30 - a nearly 12 hour day which sometimes is the norm for me at the school.

This year November 8th was the probably the most important day of the year for a 3rd year high school student in Korea. It was the day when the students would take the incredibly important SATs of which their score would help determine exactly which college they would attending in March.

The test is taken quite seriously within the country - students who run late typically have police escorts to the test centers and some parents will spend the day praying outside those centers for their child to receive high marks on the test.

There's a lot I don't quite understand about the Korean education system but the more I learn about it the more I appreciate the American education system. Awhile back President Obama praised the Korean education system and on paper I agree the system looks great - Korean students regularly have outstanding test scores. However, if you work in the system it quickly becomes apparent that the system is seriously flawed and there's little I would consider suitable for the USA.