Me Teach English (that's umpossible)
November 14, 2005

Today I sat in on Sunja's English class as a guest speaker.  The class had an assignment to talk about (in English) the Korean version of Thanksgiving and I spoke briefly about the American version.  I told them how the whiteys came over and killed all the Indians and celebrated their victory with turkey.  At least that's all I could remember from History class.

The class was held in a traditional tea house.  This place was pretty cool.  They kept bringing tea after tea after tea.  I swear I drank more hot tea that day than I have in my whole life in America.  We had a green tea, a sweet bean tea, a Chinese tea that is supposed to cut fat, and more.  They also serve a full meal with side dishes and periodically bring snacks to munch on.  You can stay as long as you like, and as long as you stay, they keep bringing more tea, snacks, and food.  This only costs 10,000 won a piece (about $10) for as long as you want to stay!

The class consisted of all married women.  Some spoke English very well, and some are just beginning to learn.  Only one was married to an American man, but they speak Korean in their house so he can do his Korean job better.  The majority of the women seemed to complain about how much hard work their version of Thanksgiving is.  There seems to be a lot of similarities between our Thanksgiving holidays.  The women do all the work and the men don't.  One big difference is the men in America watch football while the women cook, but I'm not sure what the Korean men watch...maybe soccer.

A couple of differences between the holidays are, in Korea, they travel to the husband's family for the service.  Sometime around the holiday, you also go to your grandparents graves and clean up the area.  There's also tons & tons of food being made that takes a few days to prepare.

What I learned today about Korea:  1)  Hot tea makes you hot pee.