First Snow

We had our first snowfall in Gwangju in the beginning of December.  We were walking to school and saw some white stuff falling from the sky, and I said, "Is that ash?  Do you think there is a fire burning somewhere?"  (true Southern Californians!) As more started to fall we quickly realized it was really snow!  I will probably be tired of it by the end of the winter but it is so magical to see snow falling.  Here are some photos around our neighborhood and school of the snow.

A video at our bus stop 

These are pictures of our neighborhood the next day.

A view from our window at school

Another view from school

Temple Stay

    The weekend of November 24 and 25 Carrie and I went on a temple stay, which is were you go to a Buddhist temple for one night and do as the monks do.  We went to a temple in the port city (smelled like home) called, Yeosu.  The name of the temple was Hyangiam.  This temple is a very popular tourist spot because it is on an island and is facing East, so most people wake up really early and hike up to this temple to see the sunrise for a family day trip (Pictures later).

This was a model of the chain weapon   

     Let me rewind and tell you about the fun activities prior to arriving at the temple.   We first visited the port of Yeosu, this city is not only know for its port but is know for the fortress of a famous general who lived in the 1500s.  He is famous for using a large thick chain to break enemy boats as they trailed his ships during a sea battle with the Japanese.

Bradley trying to be artistic 

The view from Yeosu.  There are lots of little islands off the coast

More views

The recreation of part of the old fortress

The valley is the only entrance to the town below. For this reason it was a great city to live in because of the protection from enemies 

After seeing the fortress site we moved on to downtown.  Downtown was very similar to Gwangju's downtown so we just shopped with some of our friends who work at the GIC.  After downtown we headed to the Temple.

When we got there, there was, as there always is in Korea, a hike to get to the temple.  During the hike you had to climb though boulders that were leaning against each other with just enough room for a person so walk through.

   



 We arrived just before dusk and were led to our accommodations for the evening.
   There was only 6 men on this trip, so our accommodations were better than the women's.  The men had a small room with multiple blankets yet no beds, which is customary in temples.  The women had a similar space but they only had a closet with a toilet, while the men had a full bathroom with an awesome shower (thankfully it was for only one night).
    The evening meal was a traditional Korean meal, only difference was that is was all vegetarian, as Buddhist monks and nuns do not eat meat (don't worry I made it without eating meat for the two days).  After dinner it was time to pray.

The view from the temple

The temple 

Artwork at the temple

Another view from the temple

The beautiful temple

These turtles were all over the temple and people would put coins on them as offerings and for good luck

More turtles

The turtles were watching the moon rise

   We met with a Buddhist clergy member, who is a woman so she is called a nun, pictured below, started the service by ringing the large bell.  Then we went into the temple and she did a couple prayers, then she explained what was going on in Korean and our tour guide/translator told us what she said.

After the service we went back to the dinning hall and had tea and fruit or dessert while we had a discussion with the nun.

This is the nun

We discussed many things with her, mostly we discussed why she became a nun and  about the Buddhist beliefs about the afterlife.  She was originally Christian but she always felt out of place when she went to church and so she searched and found Buddhism and decided to become a nun.  When she told her family everybody didn't like her decision but they respected it, except one of her uncles.  He told her that she was going to become a demon.  Much later in her life she saw her uncle again and had no hard feelings toward him but he said that he was sorry and realized that he was mistaken about her becoming a demon and that she looks healthy and great.
    The next morning we woke up at 3:30 am to go to another prayer service, where the nuns bow 108 times.  The 108 bows is symbolic of the Buddhist belief that one have multiple lives. The nun told us during our discussion that she did these bows every morning for six years straight without missing a day.  After the service we had breakfast and then came the sunrise.  After the sunrise it was time to go home to Gwangju.
   

The beautiful sunrise

More of the sunrise 

The tug boat at work 

We had an amazing time and are considering going to more temple stays in different areas (don't worry we will write about them if we do go).  

The Dream Tree Festival

On Friday, November 16th, we had the privilege of helping out with our school's winter festival called The Dream Tree Festival. The kids have been practicing for over a month.  We had a half day at school then after lunch we went to a large theater and had one rehearsal to prepare for the big show at 5:30. We were part of the stage crew for the entire show. But we were more like proud teachers than good stage hands. We recorded some of the acts that the students performed.  Our favorite was the first graders singing and dancing. They all performed splendidly. Here are some photos and videos. Check them out yourself.

The captions are just informational not what they are saying.

This is our favorite.

This is our ids doing the traditional Korean dance we saw during Chusok.

Don't mess with our students they will kick your ass!

 One of the hostesses with the most-est!!

 The flutes players

 The clarinet players

 A Chinese dance some of the kids performed

 A nice photo of the Ga-ya-geum being played

 The pretty ballerinas . . .

doing their thing.

A couple of the percussion section 

Test Day

Today was an interesting day at our school, because we got to see how seriously Korea takes their testing.  Our school is a private elementary school; there are also a middle school and high school in different buildings on campus.  Since we teach in the elementary school, we never interact with the older students.  However, today when we showed up at school there was a large group of young people standing outside the high school with signs, shouting at cars as they drove up to drop off students.  Bradley and I assumed they were protesting something, but we didn't really know because everything was of course in Korean.  When I got to my first class of the day, I asked the students if they knew why there were people yelling outside of the school.  They said that "it is for the test, they are cheering."  We later learned from the Korean teachers that the high school seniors were taking an examination, along with ALL the other high school students across the nation, to qualify them for university.  Depending on their scores, they can either go to a high ranking university or an average one.  They test from 9 to 5 (!!!!!!), with an average of an hour and a half per subject (way harder than the SAT!).  The teachers also told us that all elementary students were asked to come in 10 minutes later today, so that their parent's cars would not cause traffic and make the high school students late. In addition, it turned out that rather than protesters, all of the people outside the high school were parents, siblings, and middle school students who were simply cheering the high school students as they arrived for their big test.
The importance of this test was also shown later in the day, when we went to lunch.  In order to get to the cafeteria, you have to exit the side of the school and cross a common courtyard.  As the students exited the courtyard, the vice principal stood at the exit with a finger to her lips, indicating that the students should walk silently across the courtyard so the sound wouldn't carry to the high school and disturb the test takers.  We also learned that today, planes are not allowed in the air at specific times when the students are taking the listening parts of the test.  As we left school for the day, there were a few dozen parents waiting outside the high school, waiting to cheer their children as they exited the school.  It was kind of awesome to see how supportive they were of their students, but at the same time, also demonstrates how much pressure there is here on the students.  One of the Korean teachers told me, "The students have been preparing for this day for 12 years," meaning their entire education leads to this day.
It has certainly been a learning experience seeing the amount of pressure these kids are under, and comparing the Korean education system the the U.S.  First, students go to regular school from 8:30 to about 3:30 or 4.  Then, the majority of students (in the country, not just our school) go to a private academy after school for several hours to learn more about a variety of subjects.  Most of my students do not get home until 8 or 9 at night.  They then have to study or do homework from both their school and academy, and many students don't go to bed until midnight.  In addition, many students go to academy for at least a couple hours on Saturday and Sunday.  It is really astonishing how much these students have to do, and how little time they have to just be kids and relax.
The reality of the stress the students are under was emphasized today while I was grading English diaries.  The students write in these once a week, and Bradley and I check them.  I really enjoy doing this; I think it is a fun way to get to know the students better. Today, however, I had one entry where the student talked about being hit by a stick on his hands 5 times at academy because he hadn't finished his math homework (corporal punishment is allowed here, and happens more commonly in academy.  I haven't really seen it at my school, except for when a teacher grabbed a student by the ear and led him out the door).  I had another diary entry where the student talked about how she got A's on all three of her tests she took last week, but she had only gotten scores of 95 out of 100, and both she and her parents said she should have done better.  These students have so much stress, and this leads to mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety.  Mental illness is highly stigmatized in Korean culture, and few seek treatment.  This in turn leads to the extremely high suicide rates here, particularly among young people.
Knowing all of this really makes me feel so much more patient with the students, and I try much harder to make my classes more fun, so they will be learning in a more relaxed atmosphere when they are with me.  I tell them they are smart, and I write back to them in their English journals and tell them that they are amazing.  When I see a student nodding off in class, I just let them be, because I know that more than likely they were up very late the night before.
While there is a lot of pressure on the students, their self-motivation seriously impresses me.  The students here are more able to get to work on an assignment without me having to constantly keep them on task.  Last week for Halloween I brought in crosswords for fun, and when I passed them out it was absolutely silent.  They work so hard, even when they are doing a fun assignment!  When I was a substitute in America, the students would be talking and chatting the whole time they did a crossword.  The students here have such drive to do well and they aren't afraid of studying hard.  I am simply in awe of them sometimes.
While I think that the students in the U.S. could benefit from pushing themselves a bit harder, there comes a point when it is too much.  There is a balance that must be achieved in order for students to reach their potential, and not be pushed to the breaking point.  Being here and comparing the ways these two countries educate their children has really been a learning experience (pun intended, haha).