On the real day of Thanksgiving (November 24th) I came to school trying not to think about how it was a holiday that I was supposed to be eating a lot of turkey and stuffing (the turkey they served to the Fulbright ETAs was very small and the stuffing was definitely no where near being as good as my dad’s) but when I came to my desk I saw that my thoughtful co-teacher Mirim had gone to a bakery and tried to pick out some baked goods that would simulate a thanksgiving feast for me (like sweet potato pastries). It came equipped with a card written in cursive which I have been teaching her on our downtime. School was really busy and then I ended it with the 6th grade club class where we compared Korean Thanksgiving (Chosuk) and American Thanksgiving.
I’m going to take this time to explain to those who don’t know the differences a little bit about the culture of each Thanksgiving. While our Thanksgiving celebrates a successful harvest where we give thanks to God for giving it to us Chosuk celebrates the beginning of Harvest praying for a good year. Chosuk is always on the 15th day of the 8th month in the lunar calendar and our Thanksgiving is always the fourth Thursday of November. BOTH holidays involve coming together and sharing a feast with friends and family in the fall.
After the 6th grade advanced club class Mirim and Mina (two of my co-teachers) took me out to dinner where I got the closest thing to an American Thanksgiving-oven roasted herb chicken pizza. After the lovely dinner Mina knew of a traditional Korean music concert going on so we had prime seating for that, not because we got there early or had good tickets but because we got there super late so we had to basically sit on the stage. We sat cross legged on the stage for twoooo houurrsss. Don’t worry with my stone bed I’d had plenty of practice with staying still on a hard surface for extended periods of time. The performance was really good though, I have seen the traditional drums and the cool hats that swing around (I want to find one so that the Hubbard clan can win the HAT PARTY fo sho) but the performers were really good. There was one lady among all the guys and she was realllyyy short but she had a great stage presence. Mirim also fell in love with one of the performers which we won’t tell her husband.
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