From the day I got my acceptance letter from Fulbright I have told my family and friends that I want them to come and visit Korea. I knew that I was embarking on a once in a lifetime experience and I wanted my family and friends to come and join me if they could. Due to the fact that Korea is on the exact opposite side of the world I understood that the majority of the people I asked would not be able to make the trip. But, I love Manning family vacations and after being here for a few months I knew that if the Mannings came to Korea, it would be the vacation of a lifetime. In December they came and it was a vacation for the books.
My family arrived in Korea just in time to come to Yongso for my last day of school before winter break. In Korea, students and teachers have January and February off from school before starting the new school year in March. My family came in for probably the most fun day I have had so far. Our school day included my Dad accidentally telling my students in Korean that he was my older brother, my brothers helping students cheat on their word searches and my mom laughing harder than anyone in the class when we watched the clip of Mr. Bean getting the turkey stuck on his head. We awkwardly shared instant coffee with my vice principal and ate octopus for lunch in the cafeteria. My students practice a new karaoke song each month and after lunch we had a karaoke contest for the song of the month, Nat King Cole’s L.O.V.E. My host sister and her friends created a dance and another group cut out letters to use in their performance all because I told them that groups that did a good job would get candy from America. My brother, Mike, was the candy man and was mobbed throughout the contest. Best school day ever.
The first few days of my family’s visit we spent in Cheonan. We ate Korean barbecue with my coteacher and her children. My mom brought pez from home and tried to teach every Korean child she met how to pull Santa’s head up and insert the candy. This lesson led to one kid mistaking Dwight’s head for a pez and trying to pull it off. My dad quickly put a stop to that.
I introduced my family to some of my friends at our favorite Tuesday night wine bar and ate dinner at my apartment with my host family. My host mother was really nervous about having so many foreigners in the apartment, so she busied herself by making every food that I have ever told her that I liked. It is rude to say you don’t like something, so by default I have a lot of favorite Korean foods. She made a ton of food and sat at the table watching like a hawk as each of us tasted every dish. My family was still not used to the communal eating, especially dipping spoons in the same soup bowl and slurping it off of spoons. My host father had lots of comments about our eating habits. My little brother, Kevin, was picked on for not trying everything, my dad was commended for eating hot foods “well” and all of us ate way past our comfort level.
After dinner, my mother brought out the Christmas gifts for my host family that she has been buying for months. All of the presents went over really well and both my host father and brother put their Phillies shirts on at the dinner table.
The rest of our time in Cheonan was spent trying all sorts of Korean food for the first time and exploring my favorite places in town. I forgot how much of an experience it is to just walk down a street in Korea and read all of the funny signs. Many of them are either silly/inappropriate English phrases or spelled wrong. Mr. Manning is currently compiling a collage of the signs he saw.
The last event we were to attend before heading to Seoul for the rest of vacation was Christmas Eve mass at my host family’s church. This was an event that I have been dreading for months because of an incident in the fall regarding religious pressure from my host family. On the cab ride to the church I was sure that I was going to either throw up because I was so nervous or be denied communion from the priest that last time he saw me yelled at me about not attending Korean mass each week. The last time I saw him he told me to recite the 10 Commandments to him and submit my sins of paper each week to my host father who would translate them into Korean, so I could be given penance. Needless to say I was very worried about walking into their Church.
Mass turned out to be fine, we sat front and center, everyone stared at us and we only understood one word, Amen. Following mass my families and I took group pictures on the altar. Somehow we never got a picture of all of us, but one of the nuns was able to sneak into some of them. About a week before my parents arrived I was informed that there would be a variety show following Christmas mass. The idea of a variety show worried me and I immediately used the excuse that my family would be very tired from traveling so we could only stay for a few minutes.
Following the picture, my family and I were quickly swept from the front of the church back to a recreational room. Downstairs we heard Salmunori drummers (traditional Korean drumming) and we all began to wonder what this show was going to be like. The drummers paraded up the stairs enthusiastically playing, jumping, hooting and howling as they passed us and headed to the stage.
Many members of the church greeted my family warmly. It was exciting because we were the first foreigners that had ever visited the church before. As the soju (A vodka-like rice liquor) started flowing the greetings turned even friendlier and we were swept away to a table in front of the stage. Each of us was given a metal cup, most of them previously used, and our cups were filled with makgeolli (another Korean rice wine with a high alcohol content). We drank as slowly as we could because each time our cups nearly empty they were refilled with more makgeolli than before. My mother was fed without her consent and with used chopsticks, the fattiest piece of mystery meat I have ever seen. She was a good sport and understood that we were guests and in respect of Korean culture we had to try everything that we were served. (I think she gagged when the man that fed her was not looking.)
As my brothers, mother and I stood and tried to navigate how to get out of drinking more, my dad somehow slipped away to the front of the stage. At the time I was upset because he was not being forced to drink, but now I am thankful because he was taking pictures to document the show on stage. Each apartment complex in the church’s community, including the retirement complex, created a song and dance performance for the show. The adults in my Highvill complex dressed like toy soldiers and my host father sang Santa Clause is coming to town in Korean. Their performance was just the start. As each group went on stage, things got a little bit weirder. One man dressed up as the skinniest Santa I have ever seen and took his beard off in front of all of the children. Many people put tissues in their noses and ears. A group of men wore fuzzy women’s pajama pants during their performance and then mooned the crowed at the end. They had pieces of crumbled paper in their bottoms that said Merry Christmas in Korean. At some point my brothers gained a following of high school girls that thought that they were so handsome. Awww
Mike escaped to the bathroom when things started to get a little wild, but after a little while we noticed that he never came back. When we went to search for him, we found Mike at a small table outside of the main room being encouraged to take shots of soju with the “men.” It turned out that Mike was approached in the bathroom, taken by the hand and led the table outside in the hallway. Shortly after we rescued Mike, I heard the person on stage talking about Americans and because were the only ones in the room, we quickly headed for the door. My mother made it clear that she was not going on that stage. We were also some of the most sober people at the event and we took that as our other clue to leave. Before we left we took a few last pictures with our new friends, my dad and I were asked to sign a girl’s missal so she would remember us and we said goodnight to my host family. I spent my walk home laughing to myself and happy that my family was able to have a very Korean experience that makes you ask yourself, what the heck is going on right now?
The next morning was Christmas. My host family gave me a box of thirty gel cubes of red ginseng, we all said goodbye and I headed on my way to meet my family for our train to Seoul.
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