Sunday, May 06, 2007

Korean/English Language Exchange

My adult class was cancelled Saturday morning because it was a National Holiday in Korea: 어린이날- Children's Day! I threw a party for my elementary school students on Friday, complete with Scrabble and Korean snacks like dried octopus & squid, shrimp chips and chocolate pies.

Children's Day seems redundant to me. I think the Canadian mentality is that every day is "children's day," but after a bit of research I found out that the holiday is celebrated in 27 countries worldwide, including India, Venezuela and Congo.

Every Saturday after my adult class, I meet an engineering student for a language exchange. The lessons can be tedious because his level of English is quite low, and my Korean is that of an infant: "Uhmunie! Ohh-you jusayo!" "Mother, I want milk!"

I always bring a newspaper with me and ask him if any headlines spark his interest. I thought we could discuss the Nigerian kidnappings or something topical, but he chose 'University soccer.'

Here he is at Good Coffee, a coffee shop in Suwon:



3 comments:

  1. Anonymous2:50 AM

    Wow a party! You must be really popular with the children =)
    Dry squid's surprisingly good, not so sure if I'd like octopus though..

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dry squid is surprisingly good dipped in mayonnaise at a bar.

    ReplyDelete
  3. mayonnaise and goju-jang! ;)

    i just wanted to inform you that you had saturday off because it was my birthday...and it "happens" to be children's day...not the other way around ;)

    lol

    ReplyDelete

thank you and have a nice day