Chuseok: 추석

You say that like "chew-sock." It's the Korean equivalent of Thanksgiving, only instead of pilgrims and indians and smallpox, there's ancestors, visiting your hometown, and Buddhists!

That's a gross oversimplification. Here's a link to the wikipedia page about Chuseok: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuseok

In short, Chuseok is the celebration of the harvest. You give thanks for receiving a good harvest. If you are a Buddhist you do this by sacrificing an obscene amount of food to the spirits of your ancestors (because they are the ones responsible for the good harvest). We get three days off for Chuseok, Tue-Thurs. I was invited by a Korean friend to spend Monday Night- Weds Afternoon at her home/her husbands home. So Monday at 9pm, right when I finished work (Lyn and Britton gave tests, I had snack parties! For everyone! Guess who was too lazy to make lesson plans?) I was picked up right from the school and we headed out! We drove about an hour out of Gwangju... I forget the name of the place, but it was a small city famous for their summer aqua festival (YOU STAND IN A RIVER AND CATCH FISH WITH YOUR HANDS!!! GUESS WHO'S ALREADY INVITED HERSELF TO NEXT YEARS???) Her family lives in an apartment in the city, and her husband's family lives shortly outside the city next to a rice paddy in a traditional Korean house.

I was a surprise guest, but my friend's mother was so thrilled to see me, even though she had an already full house (My friend and her husband, her younger sister, her younger brother, her older brother with his wife and two children, her parents, and of course, me!) she was so thrilled. They all really liked me and have invited me back, which is good because I was afraid of committing some horrible social faux paus (like when they took my chopsticks from me and gave me a fork). They kept asking if I was enjoying myself, because I was so quiet. I tried to explain that I'm just naturally quiet, but they kept comparing me to Lori, Petra, and Sandy. Compared to those three I'm a mute! I don't think they believed me when I said that I liked Korean food. I don't know as though I'd ever get used to eating a full Korean breakfast... having fish, mushrooms, rice, and kimchi (along with three or four other dishes) first thing in the morning confuses my western sensibilities (as does having the same meal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner). I feel like we were constantly eating! If we weren't eating meals we were eating fruit and if I wasn't eating I was being told to eat! The first thing we did when we arrived at the apartment was start eating! We had raw abalone. I don't really like it raw. Cooked and in porridge I like it. Also, killing the abalone doesn't look very nice and one tried to flee in terror and I felt really bad... I bet having your mouth cut out and then being sliced into tiny pieces sucks.
Both nights we spent in the apartment. I spent Tuesday with my friend's sister. We went to a traditional Korean market and I got to see all the fish and the chickens with their heads! I saw the river where the aqua festival is held, and then we went up to Woodland, which is like a forest park, and hiked around. It was amazingly beautiful. There were lots of little traditional style Korean houses. They're there partly for show and also as a vacation spot, so you can rent them. This means that there are big Samsung air conditioning units outside each traditional house! It was so hot Monday and Tuesday. The apartment unfortunatley has no AC, and the room I was sleeping in was like an oven (nope, no fans. You can't sleep with a fan in Korea, you don't want to fall victim to FAN DEATH! "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death).The forests in Korea are so beautiful. They remind me a lot of New England.

After that (and a voyage through the mushroom rotary!) we went back to the apartment and ate more. There was some napping involved, and Min Seo (my new bff) shared her donut with me. Min Seo is the 6 year old daughter of my friend's older brother. We didn't have a lot of direct interaction, but we had that connection, where you walk into a room and you can just tell there is another awesome individual in your presence. Min Seo would run into a room, look at me yell "hello!" then immediately yell "goodbye!" and run out of the room, shrieking with laughter the whole time. And she had a Mashimaro pajama top. We did some language exchange, I taught her some animal names in English and she taught me them in Korean. I don't remember them, of course. But I was forced to practice my minimal Korean skills and can now count from 1-6 and 10-69.

Around 3 I went to a traditional Korean tea house with my friend. We met up with some her other friends, including a woman who has been studying in Australia for several years. She was fluent in English, which made communicating easier! Then up to a different mountain for more hiking and some wading in a stream. A little shrimp tried to eat my toes! From there we dropped off the Australian friend and then went straight to the husband's home. It's a very traditional Korean house, there's no indoor bathroom (just a toilet over a hole in the ground), and there's not a shower or tub or anything. We ate dinner there (very delicious, although I was getting pretty sick of sitting on the floor at this point, I just don't find it comfortable!). Then we relaxed and watched TV. I was not invited to help prepare the alter to the grandfather's spirit, nor did I take any pictures of it after I saw it. It seemed to be a very personal thing. The alter has incense, a picture of the deceased, a little... totem thingy, and then enough food for the spirit to eat for a whole year... my friend and her husbands family had been cooking the food since 6am, all to prepare for the alter! It was incredible.

We slept back at the apartment. My friend had to leave early to go with her husbands family to visit the graves of the ancestors (they are Buddhist). I stayed with her family. They had a quick Christian worship service, but of course I just watched because I don't speak Korean! It was interesting though, very quick. They sang a hymn, read a very brief passage, sang another hymn, said a prayer, and then Min Seo's older brother recited the Lord's Prayer. Then we had breakfast, all this while sitting on the living room floor!

We headed back to Gwangju around 115, took us a fair amount of time to get back, because of all the holiday traffic. We grabbed some food at the Lotteria, which is the Korean version of McDonalds. It tastes like fast food (go figure). So while my break was not super action packed it was fantastically anthropological, and it was so nice to get away and spend some time with a real family. It reminded me of when I would go to my grandparents house during college just so I could be in a house and wander around rooms. It kinda felt like that. I'm treating the apartment very much like a dorm, and the majority of the things in here aren't really MINE. The bed, desk, dresser, etc. are all mine only in so much as the dorm furniture was mine. No matter how awesome my closets are, or how much I love my table and chairs... or my coffee table, I can't take it with me. So as odd as it may sound, being in a real home, with a real family, just being a part of the mundane day to day was so... nice and relaxing!

Oh! We also watched Korean fishing programs... so it was almost like being at home! We also watched some very, very weird Korean karaoke show.
I think that's it! If I forgot anything I'll make an edit!
Happy Choseuk everyone!
~Hannah