Tuesday 5 May 2009

Children's Day in Korea

Today was Children's Day here in South Korea. A National holiday where the kids don't have to go to school and most people don't have to go to work. But my academy doesn't work that way and nobody had the day off. No matter, it's only one day so I'm not losing much and to be honest I do like working instead of lazing around the house and spending money unnecessarily, which is possibly what I would do given one day off. It's rather harsh for my academy to work on this day because it means that the majority of the students will have to go there to study. Harsh because recently every student in the country has taken and are still taking vital school exams. The pressure and expectations on students here continue to bemuse me.

Parents are supposed to give presents to their children and they often go on trips somewhere too. This explains why some of my elementary school classes were depleted. I don't know the origins of the holiday and I am sure that my students don't appreciate it either. I fully expected a swathe of my students asking for presents (sweets) but that wasn't really the case. All in all a rather low key and perhaps meaningless holiday here in the land of the Morning Calm.

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