Love......and War??

Korea has been a contrast of extremes lately. White Day was celebrated March 14th and tensions are rising with the Northern half of the Peninsula.

I’ve now been a “Flamingo” for two weeks. I love my class!! I spend 5 hours each day with five adorable and intelligent 6 year olds. I’m amazed at how well-behaved and how smart these kiddos are! I often forget that this is their second language because everything is conducted in English! I like this schedule much better, whereas I’m getting up and off to work at a decent hour of the day! It also allows for more creativity and more variety!! I am able to do various activities with the kiddos and teach subjects other than English. I’m looking forward to growing and learning with my class over the next few months.



Aside from my personal life Koreans recently celebrated “White Day”. I believe this is only a Korean phenomena. Rather than limit love to one commercial holiday each year; Koreans celebrate twice-not a great place to be single!! In Korea, on Valentine’s day, women are supposed to do something special for their honey. White Day, just one month later is the day that the man is supposed to do something for his sugar-bear. I believe it is also celebrated in Japan and was installed sometime in the late seventies. Just walking around Seoul on the 14th of March, it was apparent that love (and shopping) were in the air. Many couples walked arm in arm, holding hands, and feeding each other ice cream. Although Seoul is always busy-many areas were bustling with activity due to all of the couples wanting to be seen. All in all, it is a good idea in theory-that each person in the couple has a day of responsibility to the other….although I think that is what couples should do year round.

North Korea has not been in the spirit of love-at least not to it’s southern neighbor where I just so happen to live. We can’t really go anywhere and be completely safe-this has always been a believe of mine…I didn’t however think I’d find myself researching evacuation plans on the U.S. Embassy Website. As tension has risen in the past week or two, it has become a bit nerve-racking. North Korea has made various threats to South Korea as well as to the International community. They oppose military exercises, closed the border for one day stranding S. Koreans, cut off communications, threatened commercial airlines, released warnings about their “satellite” launch, and put their military on red alert. True it could all be a bluff and a way to test Obama….but you can never be too sure! I’m now signed up for text message alerts and know what I need to do in the event of foul play. I won’t say I’m scared, but I have felt a heightened concern and awareness of the possibility of negative events.

Personally, I don’t have much to report. For Korea as a whole however, it has been a time of love and of the threat of war……..