Long ago I determined that 4-2 was my most rambunctious and tiresome class. Forty minutes (right before lunch) with those kidlets and I’m spent for the day. So as you can imagine, I was delighted to find out I got to spend an entire Friday with them roaming the cultural artifacts of Suwon! Field Trip Day at Nammyen Elementary is quite the ordeal.
Magically, the kids of 4-2 were on their best behavior all day and we had a really good time together. I think it helped to work with them outside the regular classroom because we all got to see different sides of each other. They showed me their cute, curious kid side, and hopefully I showed them that I’m not always a crazed, authoritative meany. We watched K-Pop videos all the way to Suwon (2 hour bus ride…) and the kids of course sang along to every song. Their parents also provided them with a PLETHORA OF SUGAR and I was given random cookies, sweets, and drinks from every single one of them. It was a site comparable to the New York Stock Exchange, replaced with 4th graders trading junk food. No wonder they were so excited about a “cultural walking tour” field trip.
The place we toured is called Hwaseong Fortress, and is a big wall and some palaces that used to surround the city of Suwon (just south of Seoul). It was built like over a thousand years ago by a King to bury/honor his father, who was killed by his father for refusing to kill himself. Complicated, eh? The wiki link is quite useful. Current Korean culture is verrrry westernized now, so it’s really interesting to learn about all the old history. It’s hard to connect the old with modern times because just as with any modern culture, they have made a lot of transitions in the past several thousand years.
We also gorged on a giant KIMBAP picnic, which was of course delicious. Apparently it’s standard for everyone to bring some kimbap (kind of like a sushi california roll, the Korean version) and fruit in plastic containers and everyone just sits around and shares. I tried to imagine my elementary school field trips and my reaction if someone stuck their chopsticks (ok, fork…) into my lunch pale. American kids aren’t much for sharing their Lunchables, surely I would have freaked out. It’s fun to watch and interact with a culture that is ALL ABOUT SHARING. Sharing drinks (like cans they’ve already sipped from), chopsticks (like shoving their chopsticks in my mouth with a big peice of kimbap) and soup (like 4 people to one soup bowl) are all common occurrences. Could explain why my cold is being so persistent….. this place is like a giant germ pool. Despite the perpetual cold, I do love that aspect of the culture here.