Halloween: ‘korean style’

I have this little boy in my class that is obsessed with the world renowned hit song by PSY: ‘Gangnam Style’. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, click on the link immediately. It will only help you understand my little boy named Tim. He can sing this song backwards, forwards, and also can impressively sing quite a few parodies. He’s decided to take the phrase: “Gangnam Style” as his own, and anything he thinks is cool and relevant to him he calls it, “_____ style!” Im talking about everything.

On Fridays I try to do crafts with my little Kindi students. I usually end up with some sort of origami paper craft, it’s the easiest and with the least material. I found some cute strawberry origami paper, so I decided to make strawberries this last friday. When Tim saw it, he immediately shouted, “Origami…Strawberry style!”

Last week was Halloween. Halloween is a big deal to our students, because they wouldn’t normally celebrate it in Korea. We only celebrate it at our school because the students need to learn about foreign traditions. Tim was so excited about Halloween that anything I did remotely ‘fallish’ or ‘Halloweenish’ he’d yell, “Oh Amanda Teacher! Halloween style!”  That kid. …  …

As far as Halloween goes, I was presently surprised. I had been told in advance that our hagwon would be hosting a party for the kids…and the dress code was to ‘dress up.’ As I’ve mentioned above, Korea doesn’t do Halloween. I didn’t know what the heck I was going to dress up as, seeing as how I’m a good 5 inches taller than most of the Korean women, a normal costume may not fit. Gmarket didn’t have a great (teacher worthy) selection either, so I had to improvise. I know this seems rather cliché but I went with an Indian theme. Yes this could be laughable seeing as how I have blonde hair and really don’t resemble an Indian whatsoever. Derik went with the mexican/jamaican look…complete with a black fro and his newly acquired El Gitano shirt (El Gitano is the name of the new LOCAL mexican restaurant). I don’t think the kids got it, but they thought he was funny looking, so score for Derik. 

When we arrived at school on Halloween day, the entire Kindi area was decked out in Halloween decorations from head to toe. There were bats, spiders, jack-o-lanterns, scary ghosts…etc. Where they get all this stuff? Im not sure. The kids fit the occasion as well. There wasn’t a kid that did not have a costume. There were princesses, ninjas, fairies, doctors, pirates, and…of course, transformers. The kids were bouncing off the walls with excitement and laughter…i’m sure all the candy didn’t help.

As foreign teachers we were asked to come up with a Halloween game to play with the students. Derik and I, being quite the originals when it comes to games, chose the ever popular ‘toilet paper mummy’ game.  True to 5 year old fashion, everyone wanted to be the mummy. Thirty minutes later the floor looked like it had snowed 5 inches of soft, squishy, paper. I don’t think we even succeeded in fully ‘mummifying’ one squirmy little girl or boy, but at least they had fun!

Overall, we had a blast playing ‘dress-up’ with these little ones. That day was also Derik’s last at ECC, so at least he was able to go out with a bang!

As Tim would say…Halloween was done right: ‘Korean Style.’