Traditional Traditions

I suppose the word "customs" might be more appropriate, but either way, 6 months into living in Korea, there are still many things happening here that are a little beyond my comprehension. I'm getting used to the everyday things - people driving on sidewalks, red lights being more of a suggestion than a rule, drinking soju while still at school, and eating rice and cold cabbage for breakfast. However graduation week has been pretty funny, and a little surprising.

For my school, grades 1-6, graduation wasn't really that big a deal. Well, I guess it was to the kids, as the grade 6's had their own special ceremony, they did all their "get ready for middle school" stuff, and basically got to avoid learning anything for the last week of school. For the middle school kids going to high school, it was like a hazing ritual put on by the schools. After the big good-bye assembly, all the kids walk outside, and everyone throws raw eggs and flour on them. And they do this at every school. Walking around town that afternoon, there were dozens of kids covered in flour and eggs, splatterings of the stuff all over the road, and everyone but us foreigners seemed to hardly notice it (though some of the kids covered in gunk looked a little unhumoured).

Today we had our beginning of the year ceremony, which was nice and short, and another chance for me to get in front of all the kids and their parents and have them all laugh at my funny voice. All the new teachers (and of course, me, the English teacher) got to get up in front of everyone and say a quick hello and nice-to-meet-you, then the principal said a few more words, and the year was ready to begin. To celebrate and signify the start of the new year, all the new grade 6 students put a necklace on all the new grade 1 students, then put them (the grade 1's) on their backs, and ran around the gym a few times. Oh, I nearly fell out of my chair it was so funny! Korean's aren't very tall, and so some of these grade 6's were hardly bigger than the grade 1's, and the struggles they had were incredible. A few gave up, others toughed it out. The one mentally handicap kid, who's rather big, hardly seemed to notice the kid dangling from the back of his shirt as he trudged around the gym mumbling to himself. I guess I laughed a little hard, cause the teacher next to me started asking me what we do at our schools to bring in the new year.

Going back a few steps, I should mention again my speech to the school. As I've mentioned before, being a foreigner in Korea is a big deal - for many people, seeing me is the first time they've seen any one who's not Korean. For the kids, the novelty is still pretty huge (I'm the second foreign teacher here), and they really seem to love an adult who will play with them and interact with them as much as possible (with Korean adults, respect is very important, so goofing around is pretty uncommon). Anyway, I'm dragging this out here. What happened was, I went up to say hello to everyone, the whole "Hi my name is Richard and I like being here, thank you" routine. One of the kids in the front waved to me, so I waved back, so a few waved to me, so again I waved back. Then the whole front section waved to me, one girl even jumped out to the front and was grabbed by a teacher, as she tried to wave to me. Silly me, I wave back to them. Then the whole school starts waving to me, some now shouting "Hello!" and jumping up and down. I'm sure there's a really bad joke about how to get a one armed Korean down from a tree in here. Anyway, I finally managed to stop all this waving by saying "Hello" in Korean into the micropohone, which got every student and parent giggling, but no longer waving.

Much of the behaviour seen in Korea (as in every country I'm sure) can be attributed to the country's history and the people they look up to from the past. This is on a bit of a tangent here, and has nothing to do with graduations and hand waving, but since I was recently viewing a great deal of Korean historical sights, I thought this one story might help explain a lot of the unusual things encountered here.

1400 years ago, Kim Yu-Shin was on his way to becoming General of the Shilla realm of Korea, and was on his way to reuniting the three separate parts of the country. On his way to becoming this great and honoured general, he had a few black eyes in his personal life that have become legends among the people in Korea. For instance, he was having an affair at one time with a dancer, who's name I forget. His mother, however, banned him from seeing this dancer any longer, and Kim Yu-Shin, like a good Korea, obeyed his mother with the strictest regiment. His horse, unfortunately, was not told of the change in Kim Yu-Shin's personal life, and a short while later, Kim Yu-Shin, as a good Korean at the time, got a little too drunk, and entrusted his horse to get him home. The horse, of course, took him to where it always did when Kim Yu-Shin got drunk, which was to the dancer's house. When Kim Yu-Shin realized where the horse had taken him (as he was oblivious to everything on the way, I guess), he immediately killed his horse.

The Korean's see this as a noble tale of a man who respected his mom, knew (or learned) right from wrong and showed an iron will. The painting made depicting it showed a fearsome Kim Yu-Shin standing proud over his dying horse, his mother beaming in the background. But me, I just see it as a guy who, drunk, got himself into a bit of trouble and his horse was the one who paid the price. Poor thing.

Anyway, that's all for this week. If I can ever find a picture of the horse thing, I'll have to put it up here, it's pretty intense. Thanks for the comments everyone! Steph, I'm glad I could remind you of your times in Japan - Korea seems to me a million light years from life in Japan, but the little things like naked sauna's, the random touching and staring, it definitely makes for some familiar feelings, eh.