I Live In Korea: Holidays

May 10, 2010

What Is Children's Day?

Children’s Day, pronounced “oh-ree-nee-nal,” in Korean, began in 1923 and has been a national holiday ever since. Children’s Day is for, you guessed it, the children. Children’s Day didn’t originate because the kids work like dogs in school , face unreasonable expectations and have an insane amount of pressure put on them, but at least now they have one day a year where their efforts are rewarded.

Kids get gifts on Children’s Day and it’s pretty common for them to have picnics and/or go out to dinner with their parents to enjoy a nice meal. All my students were all bragging about their steak dinners, cakes, etc. the next day at school. Lot’s of kids will go see a movie with their parents and friends, lucky kids will go shopping and buy new clothes or a game, and really lucky kids will go to the zoo or amusement park. Going to a zoo or amusement park on a day where every kid and their parents have off and everyone wants to do something special, is never a good idea. My Vice Principal told me he spent an hour parking, 12 hours in total point to point on a trip to the zoo. I felt bad for him even though I don’t have kids, and felt horrible knowing my siblings and I probably caused hell in car rides on day trips like that (sometimes even now still).

Children’s Day comes with a catch though, Parents Day, takes place just three days later, meaning any nice deed done for the kids must be repaid in just a few days. (I didn’t know this, but we also have Parents Day and Children’s Day in the US, they aren’t holidays, but there are officially days with those designation.)

“Hagwons” (private, after schools like the one I work at) aren’t closed very often so it was great having a nice break in the middle of the week…humpday no less. While most other teachers here with a brain went out the night before, or did something fun outside on their day off. I woke up at 7am so I could travel 2 hours from where I live to volunteer at an orphanage. I always do go against the grain…

At the orphanage, we cleaned, made lunch, and played with the kids. Unfortunately I am legally not allowed to show their pictures, but I can blur the hell out of them like I did below.

The kids seemed pretty excited for us to be there…except one of them, who was a bit moody to say the least. Taking swings at the volunteers and throwing his toy car around were just some of the signs of his unpleasant temperament. I was interested in solving this dilemma, and I quickly managed to tame the beast. I took a picture of him, showed it to him, and he loved it. He demanded the camera from me and started screaming until he got it. So, I gave it to him, and for the next 2 hours I was on a seesaw, pushing him around the park on a bike, feeding him, etc…all while he had my camera in one hand, and I was holding on to the camera cord with my free hand, petrified it would get smashed on the ground.

I made a friend for the day, stopped someone from throwing fits for a few hours, and got about 60 of the same pictures on my camera, all of which he enjoyed the hell out of seeing over and over again. It was a good day...

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Mar 22, 2010

St. Patrick's Day in Korea

None of my students ever heard of St. Patrick or his parade, neither did my Korean coworkers, but there’s loads of English teachers in Korea and that includes a decent sized Irish contingency. Anywhere there’s Irish people, there has to be a St. Patrick’s Day Parade. So, Korea, its government and its people did their best to provide an authentic St. Patrick’s Day experience for foreigners and locals alike…

The St. Patrick’s Day parade took place around the Cheonggyecheon stream which runs through the center of Seoul. Imagine a nice little walkway like this going down Broadway in Manhattan for a bit. The parade route was probably half a mile around the stream.

Nothing too crazy, one free Guinness for everyone, a makeshift golf driving range, face painting, music, Motorcycle gangs, dancing, rappers, the usual.........

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Feb 16, 2010

Valentine's Day in Korea

In the United States, Valentine’s Day is mainly a day catered to females. Men are responsible for planning dates, getting flowers, getting the right gift, etc. A botched Valentine’s Day for someone in a relationship or trying to get into one can cause everything to fall apart. For single people, it’s a time to reminisce about past loves, mope about being single, or go out to singles themed nights at bars.

In Korea, Valentine’s Day is ‘celebrated’ completely differently; it’s all but a meaningless holiday. The attitude towards it seems on par with the attitude people have towards Pancake Day in America, they might know it’s there, but most do nothing about it. (God I love Pancake Day)

Dinner reservations aren’t difficult to get. Kids don’t cut out hearts at school and give them to people. Stores aren’t overrun with boxes of chocolate or cards, and you sure as hell won’t find those heart shaped pieces of sugar which say cheesy phrases on them. Pretty lame.

So, you might be wondering, ‘what about flowers?’ Ahh yes, the obligatory item on Valentine’s Day. Well, if one were so inclined, they could get 3 dozen roses for just over $45. Cheap! However, the only problem you’d have in actually getting the flowers is that since the school semester ends around this time, a lot of flowers are being ordered for the kids so they might be short on supply. I’m not kidding, this is the reasoning one would be given if they were so inclined to order flowers, weird, but if one of your students parents owns a flower shop they might help you out.

The ‘protocol’ on Valentine’s Day here is as follows: Women give chocolate to a man they like. The always trustworthy Wikipedia has informed me that women give two types of chocolate out: Type one, a cheap store bought kind which is given as a courtesy goes to all the men in their life. Type two is fancier or sometimes even ‘homemade chocolate’ (I call BS on that Wikipedia) which is given to the men they are interested in. That’s it.

So what about the men? What do the men do? Well, one month later, on March 14th, is ‘White Day,’ where it’s the guys turn to give chocolate back to the women who gave it to them. Honestly this sounds like more bologna. A month goes by and you’re giving a piece of damn chocolate back to the girl? Even Footloose seems less prude than this.

What if you’re a sad mess who got nothing? Well, luckily Korea has a day for you too! Actually, they have a made up holiday every month for couples and have attached meaningless significance (incredible oxymoron right there) to each:

- April 14th – Black Day, where all the losers who got no love on Valentine’s Day dress in black to wallow in their self pity and enjoy each others’ miserable company.

- May 14th – Rose Day, couples are supposed to give each other roses.

- June 14th – Kiss Day, couples kiss each other to confirm there love. All kisses on other days throughout the year are hereby insignificant?

- July 14th – Silver Day, couples exchange silver jewelry, usually rings, to confirm their love

- August 14th – Green Day, a mockery of the debauchery which occurs on St. Patrick’s Day. Couples wear green. Lot’s of Soju is sold today because it comes in green bottles. No Irish people are around disgracing themselves. Very sad.

- September 14th – Photo/Music Day, couples give each other CDs to confirm their love. They also take pictures with each other and go out to the Noraebang’s (singing/karaoke rooms). What bull, Koreans do this every weekend.

- October 14th - Wine Day, couples drink wine together.

- November 14th – Movie Day, couples see a movie together. Is this getting repetitive?

- December 14th – Hug Day, couples hug each other then break up. Actually they just hug each other to express their love and show that they are providing warmth to each other as the cold winter approaches.

- January 14th – Diary Day, couples give each other diary’s so they can write about all the boring holiday experiences they have in the year ahead.

These are all unofficial holidays that are designed to increase consumerism. As if that wasn’t enough, there’s also Pepero Day on November 11th which I've talked about before.

You water down something enough and the significance is lost. I reckon the amount of money spent on Valentine’s Day in America blows away the amount of money Korean consumers spend on these holidays. No contest.

So yeah, Valentine’s Day is totally lame here. No money is wasted on unnecessary gifts, no grief for the lonely and heartbroken, no jealousy, no fights about not going to great lengths to make the day special, etc. Come to think of it…it’s excellent. Good job Korea.

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Nov 11, 2009

Pepero Day

Pepero Day is a ‘holiday’ in Korea, one which started only in the past decade or so. Pepero is a long, thin, chocolate cookie which is covered in chocolate (sometimes nuts, sprinkles, etc.). The ones from bakeries look really delicious...

...but the ones from stores which come in boxes aren’t as nice, and really just look like a long and thin Milano cookie sans the mint.

The holiday is celebrated on 11/11 because a Pepero looks like the #1. That’s it, people eat and give each other Pepro. That... is it. What a ridiculous holiday with no history, no true story behind it and just a consumer holiday in which half of the Pepero sold all year is done so in the month of November.

Here’s what my desk looked like yesterday at work from all the Pepero I got.

Students were hyper as hell yesterday for my afternoon classes (sugar rush) and in my night classes the kids were tired and complaining they were hungry (crash from eating too much sugar). This holiday is lacking an imaginary character, emotion, decorations, cards and everything else WE put into our consumer holidays. Step it up Korea.

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Nov 2, 2009

Halloween in Korea

Halloween is without a doubt my favorite holiday of the year. It’s a shame that it is just before Marathon Sunday in NYC, therefore making it impossible for me to fully enjoy myself. I had fun last year dressing up as Forrest Gump but I wasn’t able to really drink since I had to run 26.2 miles two days later. This year since I’m away from NYC and not running the marathon I finally got to go out. (pictures below)

Halloween is pure fun, for everyone. Whether you’re a kid who’s trick or treating, a teenager who is throwing eggs at other people, an adult getting dressed up and going to parties or a parent dressing up your kids and bringing them trick or treating, it’s joy all around. There is no arguing with family, no financial burden, no dealing with traffic or canceled flights, no painful reminder of being lonely/not having a date and no reminder of another year wasted with a certain mate/at your job/not doing something you want. It’s a festive holiday with no drama and an excuse to be crazy.

Believe it or not Halloween isn’t very popular outside the US, not even in England which is an English speaking country, let alone Korea. Fortunately interest is growing and there are a number of Americans over here that make the night pretty good, but nothing like what it is back home.

This year for Halloween, me and my boy were Swine Flu Patrol.