Archive for the 'Celebrations' Category

Feb

Happy New Year!

Today is Seollal (설날), or Lunar New Year. It’s a time when Koreans travel to the homes where they grew up and celebrate the new year. In that way, it’s similar to Chuseok. They dress in Hanbok, the traditonal Korean dress. One traditional food eaten during Seollal is tteokguk, which is a soup with rice cakes. Although I didn’t have it this year, I did make it last year. A student’s mother gave me a number of packages of rice cakes as a gift.

One traditional activity is kite flying. I was wandering around Ulsan today, but I didn’t get to any of the parks. At least that’s where I assume people would be flying kites. Another tradition is called Sebae. Children show respect to their elders and wish them a happy new year by bowing deeply and saying “saehae bok manhi badeuseyo” which translates to “please receive many blessings in the new year”. Children are rewarded with money, usually in the form of brand new bills.

More information can be found at the following sites:

posted by Kathryn in Celebrations,Food and Drink,Holidays,Home Life,Korean Vocabulary and have No Comments

Jan

Happy 2010

I’d like to wish everyone a very happy New Year. As we big 2009 goodbye, I hope everyone has had a productive year. I hope the same is true for 2010.

posted by Kathryn in Celebrations,Fun things,Holidays,Home Life,Off time and have Comment (1)

Dec

Merry Christmas

I’d like to wish all my friends, family and readers a very Merry Christmas. Stay safe this holiday season. You are all important in my life.

posted by Kathryn in Celebrations,Holidays,Home Life,Off time and have No Comments

Nov

Pepero Day 2009

Peperos Happy Pepero Day to all!

Pepero Day is celebrated here in South Korea by giving people “Peperos” (빼빼로). They are long skinny cookies sticks dipped in chocolate. Very yummy! If you’re a teacher, you usually end up with tons of them. Personally, I only eat Peperos on Pepero Day. By the time the tenth student offers them to you, you get pretty sick of them. Today, I actually got a hand dipped one. Not the bulk things that Lotte makes. It was dipped in chocolate with chocolate sprinkles. Boy was it good. So much better than the bulk ones. The best bulk ones are the ones that come in the green box. They have almonds in the chocolate.

I have a pile of these things sitting on my desk. I’ll probably throw some in the box I send home with Christmas gifts. The rest I’ll give out as treats to the kids, in moderation of course. The vast majority of my kids today were way high on sugar.

The legend is that Pepero Day started in Busan. A bunch of girls started exchanging the snack and wishing each other that they would become as tall and thin as a Pepero. Nice legend. But more likely it was started by the folks at Lotte who make Peperos. It’s a true Korean “Hallmark” holiday.

Pepero Day is always celebrated on November 11th. Why that day? When you write the date at 11/11, it looks like four Peperos standing side by side.

See Wikipedia (who else?) for more information and links.

posted by Kathryn in Celebrations,Food and Drink,Fun things and have No Comments

Oct

Happy Chuseok!

Hello everyone! Today is 추석 (Chuseok). It’s basically the Korean Thanksgiving. It’s a festival celebrating the harvest. People usually travel to the cities and towns where older relatives live. Many of my students go to their grandparents’ house.

One traditional dish served on Chuseok is 송편 (Songpyeon). Songpyeon is a chewy rice cake (떡) filled with a sweet filling. My favorite kind had chesnuts and brown sugar in it. You can also get them with other fillings such as sweetened red beans.

For Chuseok, people wear 한복 (Hanbok). Hanbok is the traditional Korean clothings worn for special occassions. Wikipedia has a nice overview of the history of hanbok. By the way, that’s a long O and an A like in father. So it sounds more like hanboke. I said it incorrectly for a long time because of the weird Romanization of the word.

posted by Kathryn in Celebrations,Food and Drink,Korean Vocabulary,Off time and have No Comments

Aug

Liberation Day

Happy Liberation Day! August 15 is the celebration of the liberation of Korea from the Japanese.

I recently read “When My Name Was Keoko” by Linda Sue Park. It’s a fictional account of a family living in Korea during the Japanese occupation. I highly enjoyed it and I think it would be a good book for advanced, upper elementary aged students. It has the potential to spark a lot of discussion. I’ve not tried it with any of my students, but it’s on my list. You can read the first couple of chapters at Google Books.

posted by Kathryn in Celebrations,Holidays,Korea,Language,Reading,Teaching and have No Comments

May

From the Heart

This is a picture of the note on the balloon Julie gave me for Teacher’s Day. She’s a genuinely nice girl. I’m glad I’m teaching D4. I was dreading it based on past experience with some of the students in that class. But they’ve matured a lot in the last year or so.