Let's begin at the beginning--the beginning of Anno Domini anyway if you're one of those people who believes in Earth-shaking religious events or the denoting of epochs.
I'm talking about Christmas of course!
As some of you may know, it was recently Christmas, which made me realize just how dissimilarly the same holiday can be celebrated in different countries. I was okay with the whole Hanguk idea of Halloween, which wasn't all that different than the October 31sts of my past, and Thanksgiving I simply chose to ignore altogether. That may seem sad to some, but Thanksgiving is one of the few holidays we celebrate solely as Americans, so it was just another day in Korea. If I had had to witness happy families dining together that day as I sadly attempted to peer through their frosted glass windows at stuffing and yams, it might have made me a bit depressed. However, everyone just went about their business as usual, and thus, so did I.
Christmas, though, is actually celebrated here in Korea, and as Christmas is my favorite holiday, I was not going to let anything screw it up. Nothing, nothing would ruin my visions of sugar plums dancing and reindeer paws trotting across my rooftop. Nothing . . . until I found out that Koreans consider Christmas a "couples holiday."
Which prompted thoughts like, ". . . what the WHAT?"
Yes, Christmas is for couples here, like Valentine's Day, except they celebrate that, too, so I suppose Christmas in Korea can simply be deemed "Valentine's Day: Part I." I would have been fine with all this--who am I to tell others how to celebrate a holiday?--until others decided that they would tell me precisely how I should celebrate Christmas. I had multiple conversations that went like this:
ANNOYING PERSON: Christmas is coming.
ME: Yep.
ANNOYING PERSON: You'd better find yourself a boyfriend!
The first few times it happened I gave the person a little laugh and turned my attention to other things. But by the third or fourth time, I was so exasperated by the Korean notion that Christmas would not exist unless I had a significant other that I would shout, "Christmasisn'tacouplesholidayinAmerica!!!!!!"
Which really did nothing to deter them.
After these incidents, I felt less bad about criticizing the Korean idea of Christmas. Like I said, I don't like to bash other cultures' means of celebrating their holidays, but then I realized that Christmas isn't a Korean holiday at all! They stole it from the West in their continuing attempt to make their culture more like ours, and then warped it into something I simply will not stand for. Christmas is originally a religious holiday, and though we Westerners have indeed managed to warp it into something that hardly resembles a religious celebration, at least we took our own holiday and warped it. It's not like we take Chuseok and turn it into a celebration of the bald eagle. Who needs a second Valentine's Day, anyway? It's just a lot of extra stress for those people who are already a part of a couple, and another day to remind those people not in relationships of their current state of singledom.
The angry venting portion of this post is now over. Just in time, too, I think, because I was starting to sound a lot like one of Carrie Bradshaw's columns from "Sex and the City." Eesh.
Talking to my students, I found out that Christmas is actually quite similar here for children, with the whole Santa and sleigh and presents under the tree bit, which did a lot to appease my general frustration with Korea at the time. In fact, on Christmas Eve, the kindergarten's gym teacher came to school dressed in a Santa suit and sunglasses (which I assumed were intended to disguise his identity, but perhaps it's part of the getup here) in order to hand out gifts that the children's parents had dropped off at school. This led to a fantastic new revelation: Santa does magic tricks in Korea!
Now, we all know that Santa is magic. The man crams billions of presents into what is essentially a wooden box and flies around the world delivering them all in a single night. But this Santa did actual magic tricks! Like a clown at a birthday party! He even lit a piece of paper on fire and turned it into a foam heart with candy inside. The candy was delicious and, apparently, flame retardant.
As you may have gathered from the above anecdote, I had to work on Christmas Eve, which displeased me. Only people with really indispensable jobs should have to work on Christmas Eve, like doctors, firefighters, and gas station attendants. In quiet protest, I decided not to teach according to the lesson plan, and instead I chose to show all of my classes the classic cartoon, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" This was probably the best thing I have done so far in my short career as a teacher. I figured I could justify it if I needed to with some sort of, "Well, it's good for their listening and comprehension skills and cultural understanding and whatnot . . . ," but really I just wanted to watch the movie with my students. I was a bit worried that they wouldn't understand a word of it, as half of Dr. Seuss's words are invented, but I underestimated the brilliance of the visual storytelling in addition to Boris Karloff's excellent narration. I tell you, there's nothing quite like seeing children's captivated faces watch one of your own favorite childhood films for the first time. This little stunt won me compliments like, "Teacher is genius!" Okay, so I haven't taught them correct usage of articles, but at least I gave them a little taste of true art.
Sidenote: My kindergartners still haven't forgotten how happy the election made me, and so, just before the 25th, one of my students came up to me and said, "Teacher! Obama . . . is . . . Christmas!"
I could only respond, "Yes, Ted. Obama is Christmas."
Well, I was going to write about my New Year's in this post as well, but most of you would likely stop reading if you saw that I was going to introduce an entirely new topic . . . though some probably stopped reading after I used the words "Anno Domini."
So, in the style of Charles Dickens, let's pretend this is merely the first portion of a serialized story about my holidays. Don't miss the next installment: New Year's in the Philippines!
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