로타리 지구대회 | Rotary District Conference

Last weekend, I spent a day in Daejeon for my Rotary District’s District Conference. At this event, all of the Rotary Clubs from 3680 came together. Although there were not any other exchange students there outside of the four others in my town, I still had a great time. Just like earlier in the year when we went to Geumsan with our Rotary club, we had to get up early in the morning to get on the bus.

When we got there, it was raining, so we went straight inside to the auditorium where most of the event would be taking place. As we walked in the door, we were given nametags. They hadn’t made any for us exchange students, so we just got nametags for people that had not been able to come. So, for the day, my name was 강노영. When we were given the nametags, they also made sure to point out that there were numbers on the side for a raffle drawing that they would have at the end of the conference.

The District 3680 Exchange Students

The conference was welcomed in with a drumming performance, which was a very well done performance. After they finished, The District President began the ceremony, emphasized by a short pyrotechnics display on stage that caught me by surprise. After the explosions the Rotary clubs brought their club flags up to the stage. This was done by the representatives of each of the ten zones in our district.

When the flags were all in place, the Rotarians sang a Rotary song, then the District President gave a speech, followed by Rotarians visiting from India and Japan. After the speeches, they gave out some awards to different clubs and Rotarians for their service, and when this part of the ceremony was finished, we took a break for lunch. The lunch was planned to be outside as it has been very nice out recently, but because of the rain, we were instead crammed at table underneath tents set up on the parking lot. When we finished, we had a bit of free time, so we went to some of the booths that were set up at the event. While looking around, the only thing that was really interesting to me was the Rotary Store, where I purchased a few more pins for my blazer.

The District President and his wife, with the Rotarians from India

At the end of the break, I was told by Mrs. Kim that the district wanted the exchange students to go up on stage later in the show and that she had volunteered me to give the three minute speech that I had prepared for school a few weeks earlier. So, for the next part of the event, while they gave out more awards, I was having to practice my speech. When I finally was able to present it, I was extremely nervous. This was mainly because I wasn’t very sure that it was the most appropriate topic to present on to my entire Rotary District, as it was a bit more negative than I would have wanted. But, the Rotarians seemed to enjoy it a lot as I presented. After I finished, the emcee for the event had this same sort of reaction and gave some advice, but I couldn’t hear him to well, especially after one Rotarian in the audience that I think had a little bit to drink at lunch started shouting out 아저씨 repetitively, to emphasize part of the suggestion that the emcee gave me.

When the presentations finished, there was a magic show. The first part of the magic show was the part that I found most interesting, because it was a type of performance that I hadn’t seen before. In this performance, a man in traditional clothing and a mask was dancing on stage, and when his face was obscured for a brief moment, the design on the mask would change. After the magic show finished, each of the ten zones had their own portion to present as part of a talent show. All of the acts were very well done, but each group took a lot of time, so by the end, I was feeling a little exhausted from all of the shows.

The Mask Magician

After the talent show finished, they had their raffle drawing for a couple of prizes. the first was for a 3D television and they gave out ten of them – one for each of the zones. When that finished, they had the drawing for the other major prize, a Refrigerator. For this, they actually ended up drawing my number, but because I didn’t have may actual name on my nametag, I was unable to win the prize. I was kind of happy though, because I would have felt bad winning when it was meant for one of the Rotarians and I have no idea what I would have done with the thing.

With the raffle finished, the District President gave the closing speech and presented a few gifts to the visiting Rotarians. With the closing finished, we got back on the bus and made our way back to Seocheon, very tired from the long, exciting event.

일월 (설날과 서울여행) | January Monthly Report (Lunar New Year and Seoul Trip)

This month, I began my two-month break from school. On my blog, I already summarized what happened during the first few weeks of break. During these weeks, I celebrated New Year’s Day, went skating, visited my extended host family in Gwangju, and attended my school’s English Camp. After the English Camp, I went to visit Sejin, one of my counselors from Korean Camp, in Suwon. In this monthly report, I will instead talk about the things following the trip to Suwon in more detail.

One of the major Korean holidays during this month was 설날 (Seolnal), the Lunar New Year, which was celebrated on January 23^rd. During this holiday, much like 추석 (Chuseok), which is a holiday I experienced earlier in my year here, Korean families go to the towns that their ancestors are from. Unfortunately, my new host family could not bring me with them because of a space issue, but I was able to spend the week surrounding the holiday at my first host family’s house instead. During this holiday, I was able to participate in 세배 (Sebae), a traditional activity during which the children of a family bow to their elders, receiving money in return. We also visited their ancestor’s graves and went on a hike during the holiday, along with eating the traditional soup 떡국 (Tteokguk). During the holiday, everyone advances in age by the Korean system of age, which makes me 20 years old here, even though I am still only 18 in the system used elsewhere.

 

쫑구 (Jjonggu), my first host family's dog and my exchange mascot, was happy to see me again.

The other major event that happened was that we went on our Rotary Trip to Seoul. To do this, we five exchange students took the train from Seocheon to meet with 지원 (Ji-won) and 효림 (Hyo-rim), two past outbound students from Donggang Junior High School who were showing us around the first day. The first place we went was to Gyeonbukgung Palace and Gwanghwamun. Although I visited some of the complex around these when I was here before with Sejin, this time I was able to see more of the attraction, which was very interesting to see.

 

Part of the Gyeonbukgung Palace Grounds

After seeing the Palace grounds, we went to Insadong and had tea, following which we shopped a little bit in the market. After being here, we went to a department store and spent our evening walking along Cheong-gye-cheon, a reclaimed stream that goes through part of the city. That night, we stayed at a place called “Rainbow Guest”, which was a nice bed and breakfast sort of place.

 

Salmulnori band in Insadong

The next day, we met up with another past exchange student, 예은 (Yea-eun), and went to the Korean Basketball League All-Star Game, which was a very unique and interesting experience. There were actually a lot of similarities to sporting events that I have seen in the US, but it seemed mainly to me as if the Korean style was more focused on making a show of the experience, while in the US, it would be more about the game. After the game, I was able to go up Namsan Mountain again to see N Seoul Tower. From there we walked to Seoul Myeongdong House, which was our place to stay for the night. At this house, we got to know one of the other guests, Richelle, who was visiting Seoul for a few days before embarking on an adventure to study in China. It was interesting to talk with someone who was just embarking on her adventure from the position at the midpoint of mine.

 

At the Basketball Game

On the last day of the trip, we went to the theme park Lotte World, which was a fun way of ending the trip. After we finished there, we went back to the train station to take our train back home. Originally, we were supposed to go on to have three more days in Daejeon, but those plans fell through. I was not to upset though, because I found myself rather exhausted by the intense trip that we had taken to see the city of Seoul.

Lotte World

십이월 | December Monthly Report

This month was one of my most difficult months of my year abroad so far. I think that it was mostly due to the difficult language. Even with my difficulties on the language, I still got to do some interesting things this past month.

The first Friday of the month, my school had an English Day. For this, the school asked for us exchange students to give our presentations on our own countries. We were given the option of doing the presentation in either Korean or English. Josh, the Taiwanese student, was the only one to give his in all Korean, while the rest of us used varying amounts of Korean and English. They also asked for us to participate in a competition called the Speed Quiz. Only Josh and I participated in this competition, where we had to make the school body guess what Korean words we were trying to explain. I got nine out of the ten words, which I was very happy about.

Me giving my English Day Presentation

The week after, I switched to my second host family. It has been much more difficult, as my new host family is not able to communicate with me as easily as my last host family. I think that this is a good thing for me, though, because it will probably help a lot with my Korean.

On the second weekend, I went with my new host family to the boarding school that my host sister will be attending in the spring. While in the area, we also went to the Independence Hall of Korea, which was an interesting museum. Afterwards, we went camping, and I got to meet some of my extended family.

The Independence Hall of Korea

The following weekend, Kim Jong-Il, the leader of North Korea was announced dead. When I first heard the news, I was expecting some changes in the environment here. Instead, there have not really been any changes in what is happening here, besides the news coverage on television and the Internet about North Korea.

The next week, our school went on a trip to Seoul to see the National Museum of Korea. It was very interesting, and I hope to go back to Seoul soon.

The National Museum of Korea

On the third weekend of the month, my host family invited more of their extended family in order to celebrate Christmas. Although it was very unlike Christmas celebrations I have experienced in the US, I enjoyed the weekend very much. On the Saturday, it even snowed, giving us a White Christmas.

The week after Christmas (I had to go to school during the week following Christmas), we exchange students had our Korean language test, for our school to see how well we were learning Korean. It was not exceedingly difficult, but I had been studying a lot beforehand. I haven’t received my scores back yet, but I feel that I did very well.

On Thursday, we finished school after our hanbok (traditional Korean clothing) class for the exchange students, and we began our two-month-long winter break. During the break, we have trips to Seoul, Daejeon, and Jeju-Do. I am really looking forward to seeing more of Korea over my break.

십일월 | November Monthly Report

The first week of November was exam week for the Third Year students at my school, so the exchange students instead had to spend the week in the school library. During this week, we also started to have more frequent Samulnori practices, as we had a concert coming up later on in the month. During the exam week a group of people that were recruiting for a high school in Singapore came to our school. We used their visit as an opportunity to have a practice Samulnori performance.

After they finished their exams, they still have to go to school. Because they are not having to do as much in class, some students do some other things. One girl in my class has been making Origami Cranes.

On the first weekend, we had a Ceramics class that was rather interesting, as the class was being filmed for some kind of documentary. Because of this, we made traditional cooking stoves. It was very interesting and at the end we got to eat food make with this traditional stove. Unfortunately, it was the first ceramics class that I had forgotten to bring my camera to, so I was not able to get any pictures of it.

The next week, we found out that the school had gotten volunteers from the community that spoke English and wanted to help us learn Korean, so we now have Korean lessons in the morning of every school day, which has been rather nice. These new lessons are of a different format which helps, because we work on our own and ask questions when we have them.

My Rotary District President giving a speech at the Rotary conference.

On the second weekend, our Samulnori team went to Daejeon to perform at a Rotary Conference. We were not really given many details, so I had expected it to be a gathering on important Rotary people from our district that we would start off the ceremony for. I was surprised when we got there and I found out that it was instead a conference for Rotary International’s Rotaract and Interact clubs in our district. Because of this it meant that there were activities focused on these groups. The major part of the event was a talent show. The performances at this talent show were very good, but I was not able to take many pictures again, as I had not brought a fully charged camera. I had a person that came with us record the Samulnori performance. They did not have the best seat though, so I don’t really show up in the video.

On the third weekend, we had Saturday school again, and this time we did volunteering. This time for volunteering, we went around and sorted out recyclable items from trash piles. Afterwards, I went to see a movie with my host siblings, some of their friends, and the other exchange students. Although they had planned to see an English movie so that I could understand, I told them that it did not matter, so we ended up going to see a Korean movie called 나는 펫 (My Pet). Because of the language barrier, I missed quite a bit of what happened, including some very crucial plot points. I was able to understand the main points of most scenes though, much more than I had thought I would understand. Afterwards we went to a Noraebang (Korean style of karaoke). Although I am surprised to hear myself say this, I have really been enjoying the karaoke here. I think that this is mainly because it is a more private experience where you are only performing in front of your friends.

The last week of the month, we also began a class to make 한복 (hanbok), the traditional Korean clothing. We have not gotten very far yet, but I think it will be quite an interesting process to make them ourselves. Also, that weekend, I got my first haircut since getting here. With the language barrier, I ended up getting a bit more cut off than I planned, but it will grow back, so I am not worried.

I was also able to complete National Novel Writing Month for the second year in a row. This means that I wrote 50,000 words of a novel on top of everything else I was doing. It was quite and interesting extra experience, which helped me to see just how important writing is to me, as I was able to fit this project into a busy schedule in another country.

This month, I stayed home most of the time instead of going on many trips. As I became more familiar with my new environment, I have gotten to try new things while also seeing some new things. One of the new experiences I had this month was getting to try Dog meat. I expected it to be very strange, but I found it to just taste like just another meat. I have found my new environment to be similar. Although things seemed at first strange, once I have actually tried it out, I am able to see just how similar it actually is to what I have seen before.

This is what dog meat looks like.

로타리와 사물놀이 | Rotary Event and Samulnori Performance

Last weekend, the other exchange students and I had to get up early to go to Daejeon for a Samulnori Performance at a District Rotary Conference. For the weeks before, we had been doing a lot of extra practicing in preparation for this performance. I still was not very good at playing the jjang-gu, but I was not too worried as I assumed that it would just be a smaller rotary event, where we would play our song, then come back.

Wearing the traditional clothes for Samulnori

Upon arriving in Daejeon at the college for the Conference, we were surprised to discover that the event was not for rotary members as we had expected, but instead for all of the many Interact and Rotaract Clubs of District 3680 (My school is one of the Interact clubs, so a lot of my classmates that were not in Samulnori also came along).  I found out just how large this event would be when I walked through the auditorium on the way to where we would prepare behind the stage for our performance. The auditorium was rather large performance space and it was filled with people.

With the number of people there, I got very nervous about the performance, but I was fortunate that we went first during the event. I had one of the students from my school use my camera to record the performance. They were not at a good angle to get everyone in the shot, but the music sounds good (I will try to get that online soon). When we finished the performance, we were able to go into the audience and watch the proceedings. I was very tired, so I ended up falling asleep in my seat during one of the speeches that was given.

The picture we took with the people in our rotary district. There are a few more rows of people that can't be seen too.

After this part of the presentation, we went down the the basement area for lunch. Then, after a quick stop at a convenience store in the building to get snacks, we made our way back to the auditorium. We found out on the way that we would be seeing a talent show performed in by the students at the conference.

At this talent show, I was able to see a lot of differences when compared to talent show in the United States. One of the most noticeable was the amount of freedom the performers had in what they wanted to do. To my understanding, they were limited by their own desire to do well. This meant that there was some more edgy clothing and dance moves than would be allowed in the US. The other side of this was that the people who performed were really talented, as they had to defend the need for these things. One of the other major differences was in how long each group would perform. Most of the groups were doing musical performances with singing or dancing being the most common, but instead of just one song, some of the groups did quite a few. It was interesting to see the different takes on some of the same songs, while each group also had some that were more unique. The talent show lasted quite a while and afterwards, they began some presentations again, but our group had to go because we still had a long bus ride to get back.

An example of some of the different boundaries for the talent show. This group was very funny to see.

When we got back, I was feeling very tired, so I went to bed, even though it was very early for me. I ended up sleeping for over twelve hours, which made that Sunday the first day of my nearly three months here where I felt well-rested. It was definitely a fun experience going to the conference and I hope that there will be another one in the future.

Also, this week, I learned that there will be five students going from my school in Korea to the United States next year, including my current host sister and my next host sister. I am really happy that they will also get to experience the exchange experience and that more students will be able to come here next year for their exchange. I really look forward to seeing the preparations for sending students abroad from this part of the world and helping with the next group that will be coming here.