16th Mannyon School Festival

Last Friday my school held their annual festival where students have the chance to show off some of their hard work. It was interesting to see how talented and passionate students are about things that interest them.

The school set up a special purpose classroom to showcase the work of both students and teachers.  

I quite like the two artworks in the top left corner. 

And the artwork on the right. 

Here is a science project from some students. They made some speakers using a coil of wire, a bottle cap, a magnet and a plastic cup.  

Some artwork from teachers. The artwork in the middle is by one of my co-teachers and is a picture of her and her son.  

This poster is about different career paths. 

Outside in the hallway were posters students made to tell foreigners about Korea and its culture. Just as I took this picture, one of the teachers knocked over the easel. Action shot FTW. 

After lunch the whole school assembled in their home classes, and then walked to the theater where some would be performing. As you can see Autumn is in full swing and the trees are bright yellow. 

The theater was pretty big. I was a VIP so got a seat in the prime seating area with all the other teachers. 

I then used my teacher status to go back stage and take some photos. Here are some students dressed in traditional Korean costume all set to play the drums. 

Some more students nervously waiting in their Hapkido uniforms behind the stage.

These are not ugly girls, they are boys dressed as girls. This seems to be a normal thing in Korea. I regularly see guys dressed as women on TV in the name of entertainment. 

The stage crew. 

Some almost unrecognizable girls with lots of makeup. 

The 16th Mannyon School Festival started with the Korean national anthem.

And some words of encouragement by the principal. Apparently he also took the opportunity to announce that he would be retiring at the end of this year. 

Next, they played a video they had prepared showing baby pictures of various teachers. I make an appearance at 3mins 23 seconds. 

The first act were the traditional Korean drummers lead by an instrument known as Kkwaenggwari. A Kkwanggwari is a small flat gong used in Korean folk music. It sounds a lot like pots and pans getting bashed together. Personally, I don't enjoy the sound. The drums sounded good though and were coupled with students waving their heads around in unison. 

Then, a piano solo. 

Then a song.

Next up, recorders. 

This guy just got even more popular with the girls. He is tall, intelligent AND he can sing very well. 

Next up were some girls dancing.

Then, a Hapkido demonstration. 

And some Haedong Kumdo (해동검도) which translated means "Korean way of the sword".

Some more dancing

Then the boys dressed in drag dancing. All the students rushed to the stage to take photos up close of this.

Then finally, it was my time to dance. For the last week we spent half an hour at lunch practicing the routine. If you look carefully you can see me. I am hiding behind the incredible hulk to the left of the center.

The music stopped half way through. While waiting for it to start again, I decided to take a photo ^^.

Then, it was home time.

Debate Contest

I have been a little slack in updating my blog. My school decided to enter a team into the debate competition in Daejeon a couple of weeks ago. In the two weeks leading up to the contest I stayed back at school late in the evening with the team to help them prepare. 

And we ordered Pizza :)

The two weeks went by quickly and before we knew it D-day had arrived. We packed into the head English teachers car and she drove us to a nearby school where the competition was to be held. 

This is the gymnasium at the school. The finals would be held here, but the first few rounds would be held in classrooms located below the gym.

This is the competition draw. We didn't find out what team number we would be until after the opening ceremony. 

And here is the list of debate topics we spent the last two weeks discussing. The topics were randomly assigned to different rounds and the final battle for 1st place would be a mystery topic drawn out of a hat 5 minutes before the students had to debate. 

My pretty blue shoe covers.

My students doing some last minute preparation before the opening ceremony. 

And... some wonderful speeches...

Our team number was assigned (Team 8) and the first topics were chosen. My students knuckled down even harder and practiced there arguments right up until they entered the competition room. They were really nervous to the point where they couldn't stop shaking. I told them no matter what happened, I was proud of how hard they had worked. I wasn't allowed into the classroom (students and judges only), but before I was ushered away from the window I managed to snap this photo. My students are on the left. 

The judges took bloody ages to make a decision. They called our final speaker in (the boy pictured below) and told him the result. I don't know how he did it, but he managed to keep the straightest face I have ever seen before saying "WE WON". We were all super happy to say the least. 

They continued on and made it to the semi finals where they were finally beaten. I felt sorry for them because they had worked so hard and had they argued the "pro" rather than the "con" position I think they would have won. Sadly it often comes down to luck of the draw. They would be battling it out for 3rd place in the gymnasium. 

And here they are (on the right) in the gymnasium. 

Unfortunately they drew the short straw again and were arguing "con" for Topic 1: are school uniforms necessary. They still came 4th (out of 14 teams) which is quite an achievement. I had a great time working with them. It was a real joy to work with students so enthusiastic to learn and improve their English. 

Daejeon National Cemetery

On Sunday I ventured to the Daejeon National Cemetery with Jihyeon. There is a subway station near the cemetery (conveniently called National Cemetery Station) and a free shuttle bus from the station to the cemetery every 30 minutes. Just take exit 2 at the subway station and turn left as you exit. You will see a small bus stop.

The cemetery is quite large and there are many places where the bus will drop you off. More info on the bus and where it will drop you off can be found here (sorry, it is in Korean and the English version of the website does not have the same detailed information). Below is a map of the cemetery and the rout the bus will take around the palace. I would suggest getting off the bus at stop 4 or stop 5 as you can sort of do a loop around and see most of the main points of interest.

Between stop 4 and stop 5 there was also a small tent where Buddhists were serving free noodles.

After eating we spent a couple of hours wondering around the cemetery. Pictured here are some families visiting the graves of loved ones. In Korea visiting the graves of people that have passed away is seen as being a really important thing to do. As you can see in the picture below it was a whole family affair. People basically have a picnic by the grave and I am assuming tell stories about the person who passed away or maybe even speak as though the dead person is there with them. 

Some graves had small glass boxes filled with pictures of family or personal items of the person that passed away such as knives, rings, war medals and dog tags. Many also had small bottles of Soju (alcohol) or packets of cigarettes.

The graves pictured here are bigger because they were seen as patriots and made important contributions to Korea such as leading the resistance against Japanese occupation.

As we were walking around I randomly pointed to this gave and asked Jihyeon to translate for me. I managed to pick a interesting one. This person was a servant to the second last emperor of Korea, Gojong. 

This is a picture of the same persons grave, but capturing the mountain backdrop.

On the 26th of March 2010 the North Koreans sank ROKS Cheonan killing 46 of the 104 personnel on board.

As we walked through the forest I spotted this stone which had a lot of Chinese writing on it. I will ask a Chinese friend of mine to translate it for me, but the person must have been important. Their grave was kind of in its own separate area all by itself.

And as you can see much bigger than all the normal graves.

We took a shortcut through the forest as we headed back towards the cemetery entrance. On the way we saw a snake! It was the first time both I and Jihyeon had seen a snake in Korea. It was gone before I could take a photo of it. It was only about 40cm long and bright green.

I thought this was cool. It is the new growth on the pine trees (a sign of spring).

The new needles (light green coloured) were super soft.

This is the main memorial area where most of the ceremonies are held.

The large urn is filled with some hot coals and is kind of like an eternal fire and sits at the base of the tower pictured above. The smaller urn contains small sticks that you can throw into the larger urn to keep the fire going.  

The large urn is decorated with Korean dragons and Korea's national flower (the Mugungwah).

This is the large gateway to the main memorial area. You can see the 3 doors which were used in ancient times. Peasant and servants would use the doors/gateways on the left and right. The middle door/gate was reserved for important people. I walked through the middle gate :).

This photo captures some more statues, the main gate to the memorial area, the memorial tower and Mt Gyeryongsan (a 845m mountain and believed to be the mountain with the most qi in Korea). 

There is a collection of old aircraft and other army equipment in the center of the cemetery. 

I took this photo out the back window of the bus. Goodbye.