Congratulations!

Although there is a Korean version of the Birthday Song with Korean words to the familiar melody, whenever we go out to a restaurant or somewhere at night, or even in class if someone does something silly this is the song that you hear. It's a new twist on an old favourite that I admittedly didn't even know existed before I looked it up. First listen to the video of the Korean children singing their little hearts out, and see if you can recognize the original song.

Next, listen to this original. Pretty fabulous metamorphosis isn't it?

Finally, shake your head in wonder at those silly Koreans... :) Who would have know that Cliff Richard's Eurovision song, could become what those Korean children were singing in class? It's pretty fabulous. Wherever we are, the lights will go down and everyone else stops what their doing and claps while the Birthday Boy or the Birthday girl stands up -- usually on a chair, or even a table -- and dances along.

There is a recorded version of this song somewhere between the original and the mutilated version these Korean kids are singing, but I haven't been able to find it yet. When I do, you'll be the first to know.

Friends and Coworkers: Amanda and Meghan

Amanda and Meghan are two of the most wonderful people that I have ever had a change to share office space with, and thus are worthy of their own post. They both show up fairly frequently in posts anyway, so I thought I'd give you a little introduction.

Amanda (left) studied anthropology in university and is the tiniest of all the SLP teachers, occasionally shorter than some of the children she teaches. She has a great sense of humour and a huge heart! She is very good at motivating people to do things, most often through respect, but sometimes through fear! She can be very fiery when she wants to be! She also makes what is possible the world most delicious chicken salad. She is an American, from Florida, and we try not to hold that against her.

Meghan (right) is one of the most hilarious people I've ever met, and my desk mate. Her personality is huge and sometimes squishes mine as a result of the desk sharing, but I don't mind because she is a wonderful person to share a desk with. She often brings delicious food to taunt me with when I've forgotten to bring something to eat, although she will occasionally let me have a bite if I'm looking really pathetic and desperate! I don't usually look pathetic, or desperate, but sometimes the delicious food that she makes drives me over the edge. Meghan currently teaches my devil class from last term, and when she tells me about them, I miss them. Every last one.

Meghan and Amanda didn't know that they were the subjects of a photo shoot, until it was much too late, but after that the books went up, and there was a fence between me and their loveliness. It made me sad, so I put my camera away...

But not before I took this quick little video so you could see the lesson planning in action!

On an unrelated note: Who knew my camera could make videos in sepia?

Comedy sensation that's sweeping the nation...

This comedy sketch is so pervasive in Korea right now, that I have automatic punishments for referencing it in the majority of my classes. Watch the sketch, think about pre-pubescent children, and you`ll understand why.

Learn Korean: Step 2: Annyeong Haseyo

A few weeks ago I posted an introduction to the Korean language here, about the Korean alphabet, or Hangeul. You might remember that I talked briefly about how supposedly easy it is to learn, and I hope that you've all been diligently studying -- just like my students!

So, now that you've had some time to learn a little of the Korean alphabet -- or even if you haven't -- the next step to learning the Korean language is to get some of the more simple expressions under your belt such as hello, my name is _____ and nice to meet you. The best way to do that of course is to make friends with a Korean and have them teach you, but in the mean time this series of videos on youtube will do just fine, especially for the basics.

Lotus Lantern Festival

Please attain Buddhism in your next lifetime by lighting a lantern in this life.

As predicted, the Lotus Lantern Festival in celebration of Buddha's birthday was amazing. There had been traditional Korean festivities, lantern making, and more Korean food than you can shake a stick at all day long in downtown Seoul.

By the time we arrived the day time festivities were winding down, the sun was setting, the rain was starting and the evening festivities were gearing up in spite of the cold and wet weather. We wandered around for a little while and explored the temple and what was left of the day time festivities and the settled in to watch what I consider to be the main attraction... the parade!

This is a picture of some of the pillars at the temple, as well as some of the lanterns that were hanging in the immediate area surrounding a the temple. The lanterns actually have Korean writing in the pattern. Cool!

After a full day of festivities the parade kicked off at 7:00pm and was everything that you'd ever imagine such a parade would be. There were millions of people watching, thousands of people marching, colourful displays of everything from fire-breathing dragons to Buddha riding in Thomas the Tank Engine. Marching bands, drummers and traditional musicians provided musical entertainment while dancers, high school students, people dressed as Buddha, monks, soldiers, small children, people from a hospital being pushed in wheel chairs walked, danced and rolled by while waving and smiling at the crowd. I was particularly impressed by a group of ladies wearing traditional Korean hanbok who all danced very gracefully while walking in the parade, as well as a troupe of men preforming stick-taekwondo with flag poles.

Having been plenty excited about the Christmas Parade in St. John's for the majority of my life, I was pretty much beside myself with glee as the parade wore on. It went on and on for a full two hours, and I was jumping up and down, clapping my hands, and I'm somewhat ashamed to admit, occasionally shrieking with excitement. I felt more like someone about to turn four, not twenty-four, but I digress.

What I've been trying to avoid admitting all along, is that I couldn't bring my camera to the parade, and all the other pictures? Yeah.. they're not mine either... are you mad? Please don't be mad... Ah.. I knew you weren't!

My camera was left in school over the weekend because I had brought it to class on Friday to take this video for one of the other teachers that was sick. It's completely adorable so I'll show it to you to make up for it, and I'll continue to steal my friends pictures of the festival to put on a future post. So, without further ado, I present you, Kiwi class:

Anna Teacher:

Please don't be sick.

We miss you.

I love you x 11.

The Cabbage that we Ravage with the Chili Paste Taste

You guessed it, its Kimchi!

Making kimchi is the traditional Korean way of preserving vegetables to last over the winter. It can be made from any vegetable, or combination there of, but the most common and popular variety is made in the fall, from whole salted cabbage, with chili paste and other ingredients stuffed between the layers. It is considered by Koreans to be both nutritious and delicious. It really didn't appeal to me when I arrived in Korea, so I disputed the 'delicious' part, but I have discovered that the 'nutritious' part indeed has much truth to it.

According to this article on Asianinfo.com kimchi is rich in vitamin A, thiamine (B1), riboflavin (B2), calcium, and iron, and is also an excellent source of vitamin C. Although some kimchi varieties are high in salt and therefor associated with the health problems that come from high-sodium diets, the low sodium varieties may possibly reduce cancer growth and were listed on one health magazine's website as one of the 5 healthiest foods in the world. Wow!

Inspite of my initial skepticism, kimchi is quickly becoming one of my favourite Korean foods. I love to eat it with the majority of my meals. I agree with Koreans that it is delicious by itself, in soup or in fried rice. It is many delicious. Having always been a picky eater, that's saying a lot about kimchi and how it can grow on you.


The title of this post actually came from a music video made by some teachers in another part of Korea very close to Seoul. There are many jokes that you might have to live in Korea (or at least visit) to understand, but I'll post it anyway, because I thinks its pretty hilarious, and I'll add some pointers at the end to help you understand. Enjoy!

1. This song goes out to all the weguks. Weguk = foreigner
2. Kamsahamnida = Thank you
   Anyonghaseyo = Hello
3. T-money = Transportation money, for buses, subway, cabs etc.
   Yoke= (subway) station
4. Koreans cannot swim in a public pool without a swim cap
5. Drinkin Cass-euh, Drinking Hite-euh, feeling alright-euh: In the Korean language there are no words that end with a consonant sound, and so although Koreans use many English words quite frequently they add a vowel to the end of every word that doesn't already have one, almost exactly like this guy is doing in the video. Cass and Hite are the two popular brands of beer in Korea.
6. Noraebang : A karaoke room.

Yatta

Watch -- Laugh -- Enjoy

That is all... have a great weekend!

Where the heck is Matt?

This video is worth waiting an extra few minutes for to load in HD if your computer is fast enough to handle it.

Introducing.... Matt!

An American video game designer from Connecticut, he got tired of making shoot-em-up games for a living, quit is job and this is the result! Without further ado I give you a video simply entitled:

Dancing.

To learn more you can check out Matt's website.

As far as the eye can see..

I really wasn't kidding when I said that there were cherry blossoms as far as the eye could see in each direction. As I am prone to dramatics and exaggeration sometimes I anticipated some skepticism among blog-readers and took a video to show you all! I was also hoping to catch some cherry blossoms blowing in the wind, but with no luck... :(

An interesting note related to these cherry blossoms is that despite the name, no actually cherries grow on these trees. The cherry comes from a different species of tree entirely. You can read about it on Wikipedia here.

Also, I thought it would be interesting to mention that it is these very same cherry blossoms that many of us sang about as elementary students when we learned the Japanese folk song Sakura. It is a song about Japan in the spring time, and specifically about the most definitive sign that spring has come to Asia, cherry blossoms.

I want nobody, nobody but you!

I heard this song (Nobody - WonderGirls) for the first time in a while yesterday and decided that I had to share it with you because it heard it nearly every 10 mins when I arrived here first, and had *gasp* almost forgotten about it!

Traditional Korean music has all but gone by the way side here in Seoul, especially among young people who list it as among their least favourite music. However, K-pop is a thriving industry and is phenomenally popular. With the most popular K-pop music at least is seems that success is guaranteed by about a dozen English words, usually having something to do with relationships or teenage angst and the rest of the song in Korean. I was told when I got here that this particular song was such a sensation that it was also becoming popular in the west, but I'm not sure that I'm convinced.

At any rate, here it is for your listening and viewing pleasure! It's set to be released on May 5, 2009 as the groups debut single in North America. I cut off the beginning of the video because its a little dull to watch, but the story is that in the video the song was originally intended for someone else but he got stuck in the bathroom before the show started and our heroines (the WonderGirls)had to take over and save the day because no one knew where he was!




Over the past few months Nobody has slowly faded and I think this one is one of the most popular right now. I borrowed the idea for this post from one of the other teachers in my school, and he says that his kids don't really like this group. They are called Girls Generation and apparantly especially the older girls in his classes like to call the group something in Korean which roughly translates to 'plastic surgery generation.' This one doesn't have any English translations, but its another pretty good example of what most radio stations are playing around here.

HomePlus! HomePlus!

I have this song stuck in my head today, because I need to get some groceries. I hear it multiple times every time I go into the store that's next to my house : HomePlus. (No, I haven't seen any polygamists Catherine.)

Hopefully it will get stuck in your head too! Enjoy!

I've been through Korea on a turtle with no name...

The turtle I got for Christmas needs your help!

He still has no name!

Can you save him from a life with no identity?

Just look how cute he is, eating his breakfast this morning with his favourite turtle friend -- his reflection in the glass!

Please put names to be considered in the comments section!

Thank you from your friendly neighbourhood turtle-mama, and perhaps turtle-mama-to-be-when-I-leave...

Laura and Amanda