To Sejong and the Macabees: Spring has Sprung and Happy Birthday Pop!!!

Hello!

First off, happy (belated) 95th birthday to my grandpa Pop, my most dedicated and avid reader!!!!!!!

Also, hats off to my Bubby for working really hard at therapy and getting better every day!!!!! ^^

So, it's already 11:30 pm... So I probably can't write much, but I've been meaning to write an update.

I feel like I'm always in the middle of tests! And here I am, yet again, studying and getting ready for my midterm interview exam on this wednesday. I took our two written exams last week on Monday and Tuesday. I got back my writing and reading tests; my scores were fine. Pretty on par with what I thought they'd be. I'll get my speaking scores back on Wednesday, after my interview.

It's called an interview, but really, its memorizing dialogues... My partner and I had to write 10 dialogues and now I'm trying to memorize them. When we take our test, there will be 10 cards, and we will draw 5 of them. From those 5 we pick 3, and do the dialogues that correspond with the grammar points.

My interview partner, Chika is from Japan, and is an AMAZING cook!!!! We met on Saturday to practice and she made the most amazing lunch (and she thought it wasn't very good!!). What?! It was awesome.

salad and bosam (thick bacon aka pork belly)

(I don't know the name, but the white stuff is made from potatoes)

PASTA!!!

me and Chika

After studying, I met up with Nik and we went to the Vagina Monologues (click on the link for a description of what the Vagina Monologues is all about). I've been meaning to see this show for quite some time, and was pretty impressed with the production.

According the the Vday website:

V-Day is a global activist movement to stop violence against women and girls. V-Day is a catalyst that promotes creative events to increase awareness, raise money and revitalize the spirit of existing anti-violence organizations. V-Day generates broader attention for the fight to stop violence against women and girls, including rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation (FGM) and sex slavery. [...]

In 2010, over 5,400 V-Day benefit events took place produced by volunteer activists in the U.S. and around the world, educating millions of people about the reality of violence against women and girls.

So, there are Vagina Monologue productions held all over the world and I think 100% of the proceeds are supposed to go to help an organization/beneficiary. The beneficiary of our show was KUMFA, Korean Unwed Mothers & Families Association.

We saw a bilingual production, so some of the monologues were in Korean with English subtitles behind, some were in English with Korean subtitles on the screen behind, and a few were done by two actors in both English and Korean.

To put it simply, there was definitely a Korean twist to the show, which I both appreciated and found very intriguing.

Some of the pieces were very moving, especially the one about Haiti and the one about the comfort women, and some were just hilarious. They chose a good mix of monologues.

There were a number of Fulbright people who went as well. Afterwards, we headed to Hongdae for chicken and beer.

Nik and Sung

Anyhow, last week, I went to Nik's house and made parmesan chicken. Honestly, I was kind of impressed it turned out, considering I winged it and made the whole thing up. Not too hard though, if you think about it. Bread the chicken. Saute it. I also made baked broccoli! I was so happy to be able to cook!!! There is a serious lack of ovens in this country.

note the MN map!!!

We definitely watched "Big Bird Goes To Japan" on youtube (6 parts!) because we are awesome. My question is, why is there no Big Bird Goes to Korea!?

See how changoos (the drum) can be used in so many ways if one is resourceful!

Also, last week I met up with Steve Wunrow, Bill Drucker and Mary Lee Vance, (all associated with Korean Quarterly) who all came to Korea.

Nik and I went to PAN, Kim Duk Soo's samulnori show with them and then out to lunch in Insadong.

The show was pretty awesome!!! We ate at this weird vegetarian/vegan restaurant. There was definitely a HUGE portrait of the Supreme Master watching us eat the entire time. haha!

I also met up with Steve and Bill one more time to go to this North Korean fashion show, My Fashionshow, put on by Dirk Fleischmann, a German fashion designer. It was... interesting?.. He was showcasing clothes made in Kaesong, North Korea.

It started out with a magician. I haven't seen a magic show in forever, so that was pretty fun! The lead into the "fashion show" was the magician pulling a North Korean made shirt out of his hat.

magician, complete with purple hair

the shirt that was pulled out of the hat

model

Perhaps I missed the main point of the show... That could very well be. But my take on it, was this guy went to N. Korea, toured the factories. Got a bunch of black and white cotton shirts. Sewed his label inside them and is now selling them at astronomical prices... I feel like I must have missed something because that doesn't seem right...