추석 잘보내세요!

This past weekend every single Korean (and every single Fulbright ETA) celebrated the traditional Korean holiday of Chusok. There is no exact American equivalent to Chusok; just think Thanksgiving meets Christmas meets All Soul's Day - minus the turkey, football, Santa, and Catholicism and plus a lot of kimchi. It's pretty self-explanatory.
Chusok is a major Korean holiday (I've heard only New Year's Day outshines it) that is celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar. (If you don't quite understand the difference between the lunar and solar calendars, don't feel badly - I still have absolutely no idea how to read them or how they differ, and I've been here 3 months). Anyways, Chusok celebrates the mid-autumn harvest as Koreans visit their hometowns, extended family members, and remember their departed ancestors (and eat at least a pound of kimchi each).
I stayed with my host-family the entire weekend so as to get the "authentic" feel of a Chusok celebration. As this is the only time I have ever celebrated Chusok, I have nothing with which to compare my experience. All I can tell you is that it is by far the best Chusok I have ever been a part of ... but, it was also the worst. So there's that.
The Chusok holiday began on Friday (all schools canceled classes - that's just how important it really is) and lasted until Sunday. Three whole days of Korean holiday awkwardness.
The celebration began Friday afternoon, as my host-mother practically confined herself to the kitchen making tons and tons of food. Literally. I swear I saw her prepare at least an entire refrigerator full of kimchi. I don't know if she was expecting the South Korean army to drop by and have lunch, but she definitely prepared for it.
The good stuff didn't happen until Friday evening. After my host-mom was done preparing the food, she loaded two tables full of every kind of Korean food imaginable. Kimchi, an entire chicken (sans feathers), a whole watermelon, every type of vegetable and root you could ever imagine, about 30 variations of rice cakes, and some wine. My host-family explained to me that the food was intended for their ancestors to eat throughout the day (although I'm pretty sure I saw my host-mom and host-dad carrying the food back into the kitchen late at night after the ceremony - so maybe there is a little bit of Santa stuff going on). However, Friday night my host-mom, dad, sister, and brother preformed an "ancestral ceremony" which was about 10 minutes long and consisted of them each pouring wine for their ancestors and bowing before the table 4 times each, in the traditional Korean manner. It was pretty legit.
After that they were finished for the night and we snacked on some grapes in the living room. Eun Sue informed me that the ceremony was to draw the ancestors from their resting place (the cemetery, heaven, Nirvana, the bathroom ... I have no idea) and bring them into the living room to hang out with us for the next 2 days. So we ate some grapes with the ancestors ... no big thing. We did, however, not sit at the table, so as not to make them uncomfortable while they were eating the feast my host-mom prepared for them.
I have to say that the ancestors weren't very hungry ... the food was barely touched. We also didn't make conversation. I tried, but they didn't speak any English.
Early Saturday morning (the actual day of Chusok - Friday and Sunday are really just the slices of bread around the delicious Chusok peanut butter and jelly) was reserved for the visiting of the ancestral tombs and another ceremony, which I can only imagine to include more bowing and food giving. My host-father and host-brother headed off to do their duty around 7am Saturday morning. Initially I was to go with them, just to check out this fancy ceremony that I keep hearing about (mainly from my host-mother who enjoys practicing new words she is learning in English. This week, "tomb", "main menu", and "syringe" - the last not necessarily related to Chusok). So I woke up early, got ready to go, and then discovered that my host-father and brother left without me. Real nice.
Usually the entire family goes, but my host-mother was exhausted from cooking all day Friday, my oldest host-sister was asleep, and Eun Sue was made to stay home and study.
Apparently the quadratic formula and photosynthesis outweigh remembering the dead. I mean, what could they really weigh, anyway? They're ghosts for all I can tell - can't weigh that much.
But this was the first year that the entire family didn't attend the ceremony ... I just hope it has no relation to my being here. "Meh. We've got to take care of the American. We'll just hang around the house this year, and put in some extra good bows next year to make up for today".
So I stayed home (in hindsight I'm not too upset ... they hung out in the cemetery for over 4 hours ... not necessarily something I want to do early in the morning).
Saturday afternoon was filled with visits from random family members - my host-mother and host-father's brothers and sisters, and their children. While the "adults" sat around, ate, and argued about the merits of Catholicism versus Protestantism (as Eun Su later told me - don't think I have the Korean vocabulary to understand or take part in any such conversation), all of us "children" (yes - I'm still lumped into the "children" category and forced to sit at the kid table ... even in Korea ... somethings will never change) kept ourselves busy. For the kids under the age of 12 this meant playing computer games for about 5 hours. But for us children over the age of 16, we were forced to study. Yes, "we".
My parents recently sent me a GRE prep book (strangely they don't sell a lot of those over here, at least in English) in the mail, which I showed my host-family. They, especially Eun Su, were delighted, as this now means that we can study together Eun Su. Huzzah! No longer will she be confined to the depressing little room by herself anymore. She now has a cellmate ... so she thinks.
So when Eun Sue and her 16 year old cousin (a first grade student in high school) were sent off to the other room to study - seriously, they weren't allowed to take part in the holiday celebration ... education is that important - I was sent with them.
"Rauren! Study you with Eun Sue! Rots and rots of fun!"
Rots and rots of fun it was.
So during the greater part of Saturday I studied vocab words ... which basically translated into me doodling around for about 3 hours while listening to my I-pod. I would be a horrible Korean student - I've never enjoyed studying, and I'm not Korean.
On Sunday more family came over, had breakfast, and we ate some more grapes with the invisible ancestors. Man, they love grapes.
Throughout the weekend I served mainly as "the American on display". I was always the first person/thing to be introduced to the visiting family members, and always the topic of conversation for about the first 10 minutes, then banished to the study room.
Fulbright sent us an e-mail reminding us to be good "cultural ambassadors" this weekend ... still not entirely sure what that means ... I didn't wear my American flag sweater, wave around firecrackers, or sing any Toby Kieth ... but hopefully I still fulfilled my duties.

In addition to celebrating the greatest of Korean holidays, this past week/weekend I/we (practically all of Korea) celebrated my birthday as well. Turning 23 in Asia. Didn't really see that one coming - until I decided to come to Korea, that is. I did realize that spending a year here would cause me to celebrate one October 1st in the great Republic of Korea.
23 was pretty great, in that it's like I had two birthdays. One in Korea, then one in America. Due to the time difference I was literally given two days for celebration. And celebrate I did ... just not with Kool and the Gang - no matter how many birthday candles I wish upon and blow out.
I've decided that from now on out I will celebrate my birthday twice a year, on October 1st when it falls both in the states and in Korea. I think you pretty much are obliged to do so, once you've lived in Asia.
So for my birthday this year I celebrated in Korea by going to dinner and out to drinks with some friends in Gwangju, stealing some pieces of another teacher's birthday cake, and being treated to "American" food by my host-family. All in all, pretty good birthday.
As my birthday fell on Chusok, it was nice in that I got one day off of school, yet had to share my special day with all those ancestors my host-family kept feeding. Kind of like having your birthday on Christmas ... no one really wants to share their birthday with Jesus ... how can you outshine being born to a virgin?
"Oh, your mom had you the regular way? Lame."
Anyways, on my actual birthday we did have school, and it was there I discovered that another teacher at Hwasun High School also celebrates his birth on the 1st of October. My co-teacher (whom I'm pretty sure was informed by Fulbright of when my birthday is) forgot all about it. Halfway through the day a cake was brought into our teacher's lounge, which I suspected was for me (wouldn't you suspect that too if it was your birthday?), however it turned out to be for the other teacher. In the middle of singing "Happy Birthday" I was confused when everyone shouted out a Korean name and not my own.
After then putting two and two together (4) I realized we shared the same birthday, excitedly told this teacher my new discovery, and instinctually gave him a high five. Awesome.
My co-teacher then began to understand that it was also my birthday (which she completely forgot about, but you can't really blame her because she's super busy with school) and then tried to weasle in a celebration for me, telling me the cake was half mine. Nice try, Kim.
But I got super fake excited and thanked everyone for this awesome surprise. It was such a good surprise that even they didn't know about it.
So I ate two pieces of Korean teacher's birthday cake and called it a day.

In addition to celebrating my birthday at school and with friends, my host-family took me out to dinner this past Sunday, for some authentic American food made by Koreans. We went to VIPS (a Korean chain that serves Koreanized American food) where my host-brother presented me with a birthday cake, my host-sister gave me some lip gloss, and my host-mom asked the waiters to bring us funny hats to wear while they sang me Happy Birthday.
It was great, the only disappointment was that Eun Sue couldn't come because she had to/was forced to stay home and study. So my host-brother video conferenced her on their cell phones to show her how awesome of a time we were having without her. He also made sure to let her see all the food she was missing out on, and held the phone up to everybody and instructed us all to taunt her, which my host-sister and mother happily did.
After I stuffed myself with delicious food (my host-mom was super impressed at how hungry I was and how much American food I could eat in one sitting ... I'm going to take that as a compliment) we headed home.
Sunday night I presented my host-family with the Chusok gifts I got for them, or should I say my parents got for them - DePauw paraphanelia (that makes it sound like drugs) shirts, socks, etc. They absolutely loved it ... especially my host-sister who is seriously considering going to college in the states.
We then gathered around to actually eat the birthday cake my host brother bought for me (I was too full of pizza and ice cream - I sound like a 5 year old - to eat it during lunch). So I ran to get my camera to document this cutesy cake, only to discover that sometime during the afternoon my host-mom got hungry and ate a huge chunk of it. Oh well, it still tasted great ... but you know how they always make the first piece extra delicious.

So that was my Chusok and birthday celebration in a nutshell (or blogshell). This week I'm gearing up for school mid-terms, which is basically me bringing a book to class and sitting in the classroom as the students study independently. I only have two days of classes this week, and the rest are scheduled for test-taking. So later this week I am headed to Busan to check out Korea's 2nd largest city (after Hwasun, of course) and the Busan International Film Festival that is held annually at this supposedly great city. I'm stoked and really hoping to watch some great films that I won't understand at all. After that I'm traveling down to Gyeongju for the Fulbright fall conference to get schooled on schooling and reunite with all the other Fulbrighters.
A week full of reading, meeting friends, traveling, and seeing films ... all while still getting paid. Pretty sweet gig.

So I leave you all with (I'm not ashamed to say) one of my (and every other Korean girl aged 12 - 25) favorite songs at the moment.
Super Junior's "Sorry Sorry".
Watch and enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6QA3m58DQw

N.B. This past week I yelled at a class (the first time ever) for being extremely noisy and disruptive. One of my students (whom I lumped in the "funny, but pretty annoying pile") stood up and started dancing and singing this song.
He's since moved into my "awesome" pile.