Taehwa River Festival and World Cup South Korea

This weekend was the Taehwa River Festival in Ulsan. Leon described it as the "shittest festival ever" and I have to agree. Admittedly, I didn't get there until 4:00 on Saturday, but it hardly stands to reason that there should be so little left to the event just because it's late afternoon. There were dozens of tents set up around the Taehwa Bridge area, on both sides, and they were mostly empty, except for people sitting in them, avoiding the occasional sprinkles or taking a break from whatever not-activity they were doing before.

After czeching out a tent with some children's prize-winning paintings and some taxidermied animals, I saw this guy making pottery for children for free.


Then there was this race, maybe a marathon, going on the whole afternoon, which made passage from different areas of the fair a little difficult, because you had to wait for runners to pass before you could cross the path. I saw some guy get heckled severely for absentmindedly wandering onto the track and getting in the way of some runners.


The most engaging thing around was this stage, on which belly dancers were performing.

And then this group came on, and they were pretty entertaining. They did the Macarena, among other dances, which made me wonder if they were referencing something from way back when, or if it just made it here. I'd like to think the former.








After the dancers I needed some food, but the food tent was so disappointing at the festival that I just walked down the street and got a sandwich at a convenience store. That's really sad. Had I had a group with me, I could have gotten barbecue stuff, but they don't serve that in single-servings.

As I got back, Leon had just arrived, so we waited for our friend Thulas to join us for the South Korea vs. Greece World Cup Game. It wasn't for like another three or four hours, but there was nothing else to do, so we secured our seats in front of the stage, near the back, as most of the seats were taken already.


Here are a couple pregame shows they put on the stage. Both very popular songs. I think it's kind of funny that the second song, which is about Korea, is sung by a white guy in the video. That seems very out of place for this culture.



Thulas went and bought some beer for the waiting and watching periods, and the area became totally packed come nightfall. South Koreans loves them some soccer, so it was quite exciting to watch with them in one of the many public viewing events in the city, especially since they won the game.



South Korea's team is the Red Devils, hence all the red and the devil horns. Korea's normal slogan is "Korea Sparkling" but lately all you can see is "Korea Fighting" (pronounced "hiting" or "hwiting"). They are very enthusiastic about this whole thing, despite their awareness that they won't win the cup. One of my classes wanted a party the other day, because another teacher was having her birthday party all day, I guess. I said that's because of her birthday, blah, blah. So then they tried to get me to agree to have a party if Korea won 16th place in the Cup. I said we could if they won, and the got wicked pissed at me. They did amend to 8th, and I said I'd think about it.


Here is some celebrating after the game, which they won 2-0:



The USA vs. England match took place five hours after the South Korea match ended, and I went to a pub with my friends to see that, but that's become a whole other entry in itself.

Postscript

I forgot to mention that one of my classes, the one that used to pretend I was pregnant, has been pretending I'm a different teacher since I changed my hair. They maintain that Alia-teacher is on vacation and my name is Shelacongshasalasa. Or is it Shelacongsashalasa? It's kind of hard to keep straight; even the kids sometimes say it wrong.

I'm currently uploading all my pictures and videos from the Taehwa River Festival and the World Cup events I went to, but I have to go to bed early tonight. I'll have some stuff up later this week.

Finally, a Decent Haircut

You saw the result of my last haircut, which was horrendous. This time I decided to take it up a notch and go to the posh hair salon by the movie theatre, where you get a free drink and can use the internet and stuff there. It costs 25k won, as opposed to the standard 10k, but even the higher price is about the lowest price I'd pay back home, so it was worth it.

I dyed my hair black the day before and brought in my pictures of Ashley Greene again as a guide. The guy cutting my hair got the length right this time, but again, the outward flipping of the hair threw the chick styling it for a loop. She also went at it with a barrel brush, but unlike the first girl, did not smarten up and use a flatiron. The result was even more horrendous than previously. I looked like the Mad Hatter without a hat. I wish I'd gotten a picture, but I had a ticket to see a movie shortly after the cut, and I spent the next three hours before I got home smoothing it down so I wouldn't be mortified to be in public. I was glad to be in the dark for a while.

Here's what it looks like when I style it myself. It takes about ten minutes, while the stylist took like 30-40 minutes doing it the hard way.



They dye was blue-black, but I've now realized that my hair is so resistant to dye now that even the black starts to fade after a short time, so it's more like brown-black now.

Anyway, I think I gave like 80 people half a heart attack when I went to work on Monday. Koreans don't seem to change their styles all that much. Pretty much the only thing they do to their haircolor is get it bleached to a reddish brown, and I don't think they often do drastic length changes. Also, Koreans overreact a lot, I think. So I heard pretty much everyone in the school gasp hugely, put a hand to a chest or face, and make some shocked remark about how my hair is black and short. The first student who walked into my class didn't even realize it was me in there. She walked in, saw black hair, then turned around and walked out. I had to get her and show her my face.

As always with kids, I got mixed reviews. I think all the adults who vocalized their judgment approved, but some of the kids shouted "Terrible!" and other similar things at me. One teacher and one student said I looked like a witch, which was true. I dressed goth that day. In conclusion, I am now pleased with my head. The End.

Children's Day/Teachers' Day

There are a number of days celebrating groups of people in May, including Children's Day on May 5th and Teachers' Day on the 15th. Children's Day is a national holiday, so we get the day off. Not so with Teachers' Day. We had a party on the 4th for the kids. Last year I got them all little gifts to butter them up for Teachers' Day, and I got quite a few gifts then, and the year before, when I just had generous students (or rather, students with generous mothers).

This year I totally forgot about my own holiday, but luckily I was feeling nice and got them all little gifts anyway. I bought a huge supply of Simpsons mechanical pencils and pens, along with stickers and little notebooks and such. Not one kid, not a single kid, even the good ones, said thank you. Unbelievable. I even shouted "You're welcome" to one class as they left, but those little bastards just filed out as usual, ignoring me. I think it might be because I let them choose their gifts this year. Last year I gave each kid a different gift with a name tag on it (which of course made them all dislike their gifts and want to trade in for another one). I figured if I got more than I needed this year and let them choose, most kids would end up with something they liked. But instead of being grateful for the choice, they just concentrated on fighting over who chose first and who got what someone else wanted, as kids are wont to do. The whole experience was not worth my forty bucks.

Wendy, Louie, Flora


Normally I wouldn't include a picture in which two of the three kids were looking away, but Louie looks so comically haggard.


Becky, Sarah (asker of infinite questions), Sherry, Julie, Helen, Daniel


and John. John's really funny, but he can't speak English for shit, even compared to the low level English the others speak.




Major, Alex, Carlo, Julie, Amy


Olivia, Edwin



Chris (in the back, looks just like Asian Toby Maguire), Alex, Corey (back), Steven



Jane, Kelly


James, I think that's Leo back there, Chris, Alex


My gifts did not improve my gift-gettery for Teachers' Day. It was a pretty abysmal catch, actually. Even some of my students who have given me gifts at every occasion didn't get me anything. But I did get a few nice things.

One of the Alexes got me a skin care kit, Julie got me some chocolates, Andrew's mom brought in ice cream sandwiches for the class and gave me a carnation candle, Daniel's mom made me a carnation pen (carnations are the traditional gift for this holiday), and Danny's mom (always reliable for a good gift) sent over a box of three roll cakes. I'm actually cursing the roll cakes, though. I'm trying to lower my sugar intake, so cake is about the last thing I need. I brought one of them in to work to share with everyone, and I might bring another. I'm slowly working through the first one on my own.