have yourself a merry little chuseok

To me, nothing says ‘home’ quite like Thanksgiving. It’s usually my first weekend home after being away at school is always a fantastic weekend filled with great food and lots of family time. The Korean “Thanksgiving”, or harvest festival, Chuseok, is a time when people visit their ancestral towns, spend time with their family and eat traditional foods. Sounds familiar, right?

The idea is similar to the Canadian holiday, but Korean traditions are so ancient it’s difficult to compare the two. Take the clothing, for example. When my students came to school the Thursday before Chuseok most of them were wearing hanboks (p.s. Korean kindergarteners in hanboks is about the cutest thing in the world). And over the weekend I saw several women in shops wearing them as well as children in the street.

The beautiful girlies in their hanboks!

At school, we took the whole day to play traditional games, such as top spinning, arm wrestling, jeggi kicking, Ssireum (korean wrestling) and – the kids’ favourite – chicken fighting. We made Songpyeon (rice cakes) by wrapping raisins and brown sugar in rice flour dough. Since nearly all my students were going to visit their grandparents for the weekend, we made cards for them as well. The games day was a great way to participate in Korean culture, but the best part of Chuseok was that we got 2 extra days off work!

Paige and I decided a while ago to join an organized trip with Adventure Korea to an island off the East coast of Korea called Ulleung. While this volcanic, rain-forested island is ‘off the beaten path’ it was overrun by our group of foreigners and other Korean tourists for the weekend. Unfortunately it rained for about 70% of the trip, but we put the extra indoors-time to good use, getting to know our fellow adventurers and roommates for the weekend.

We met lots of people (there were 140 on the AK trip!) but roomed with 3 blonde Americans who turned out to be pretty cool :P. Cate, Kira, Sandy, Paige and I dubbed ourselves the ‘Sex in the Si’ (Si, pronounced ‘she’ means city in Korean) of Korea and I can forsee many future adventures with these girls!

Sex in the Si! aka 2 Charlottes and 3 Samanthas hahaha

Most of the meals were provided, and were quite typical of Korea – rice (for breakfast, lunch and dinner), soup, gim (dried seaweed), kimchi (fermented cabbage) and other side-dishes. The food on the island was largely based around their two main exports – squid and pumpkin. By the harbour there were stalls upon stalls selling fresh(ish) cooked squid. I’m not sure exactly how it was cooked but I saw lots of people eating it on the ferry. They would tear off a tentacle and pass it to the next person… yummeh.

The outdoor activities were excellent, even in the rain. We walked along the rugged coastline and admired the dramatic scenery, then ventured into the muddy rainforest and got up close and personal with bamboo and some local goats. One bridge along the coast was a perfect jumping spot, and the water was beautiful. I think the locals thought we were nuts but we had a great time jumping in (even though it took me a while the first time :S).

Woo!! Taking the plunge!

We even went to a Norae bong (Korean kareoke) to top things off and made our own party on the roof of our hotel. Overall, the trip was a great success and an excellent way to spend the holidays.

The trip came to a close on Monday night so, on Tuesday Cate, Kira and I went to explore the cultural village in the heart of Seoul. The sunny weather was a nice change from the misty island, and we had a great touristy day watching the different shows and activities. Many of the activities were the same as what we had done in school, such as stick tossing and top spinning. It was fantastic to hear some traditional singing, which was very throaty… much different than I expected.

Trying to spin the top... not as easy as it looks!

Overall my first Chuseok experience was fabulous – one my favourite memories of Korea so far. There are some things that I am going to miss about Thanksgiving in Canada – namely stuffing and pumpkin pie – but I’m sure it won’t have changed by the time I get back. I guess that’s the nice thing about traditions :).