Happy Holloween!

When a Korean school possesses a staff containing two native English speakers, it would surely be common sense to double-check any attempts at English with said teachers. Wouldn't it?

Well, apparently not, which is why we celebrated Holloween this year, a slightly skewed version of the popular holiday Hallowe'en. With Christmas already existing in it's "Konglish" form (Koo-ree-soo-ma-soo), we know our help won't be required come December 25th either. But hey, it gives me a chuckle, so lets celebrate Holloween eh!

Much like the camp we took the kindergarten to a few months back, which I never got around to blogging, and also like the Everland trip, the Holloween Party was organised in a typically bizarre fashion. For example, the spectacular finale of the camp, was a flatbed truck ambling through the excited children spewing smoke from a motor mounted on the back. The organisers must have viewed this as a fabulous smoke show, when in actual fact it was a cloud of petrol fume which stung the eyes and killed the lungs. Todays party held no such health scares, but was again, executed in a style which cut so many corners while still delivering enough frivolity to ensure the kids had a good time.

Back on Friday night, we swanned off at our usual finishing time to get pished, leaving the Korean teachers to decorate the school. Yes, we offered to help, but we work more hours than them, so, it was maybe a less enthusiastic offer than we could have mustered. I have to say, they did a good job with the Holloween theme. We arrived on Monday to a multitude of ghosts, devils, monsters, and....er, Batman....., numerous carved pumpkins, candles everywhere, and some surprisingly effective strips of newspaper hanging in the dark narrow corridors. All the lights were turned off, which I thought may be taking it a little too far considering we had around 6 criers during the school sleepover. But, this is the same school who took the kiddies to Seodaemun prison for an orgy of death and torture, so they don't really dwell on the sensitivity of the kids.

If you compare the two pictures below, you can see that we captured an "Orb". This is surely evidence of some residual energy. I was unable to determine if the spirit was "grounded", or simply in "visitation", but Sam told me his initials were "JB". Without a full name we were unable to establish a link to this location.


That's the last ever reference to Most Haunted I swear. Damn torrentspy for allowing me to download it, pile of shite that it is. I'll leave the spiritualism and hub-cap stealing to Derek Acorah from now on.

Another good thing, was that all the children were in full fancy dress. We had a few Spidermen, a couple of Batmen, a couple of Harry Potters, and about 30 angels/princesses/ballerinas.....of course.




Anyway, the Holloween Party ran as follows:

In one room, the kids had to colour in some pumpkins. Wooooh fun fun fun!

In the next room, Lynne applied stickers and transfers to their faces. This kind of thing is forever popular with the kids. I've literally been hauled down and beaten within an inch of my life for a strip of shiny heart stickers.

In my room, the kids entered in groups and had to stick their hands in my box. I had better explain. I had a cardboard box filled with paper, slime, rubber mice, plastic bugs and candy. To add a little spice to this activity, I located a grotesque mask, covered myself in fake blood, and made the most of my creepy candlelit classroom. It was quite funny, but I felt bad when a couple of my favourite wee "Angels" started crying. And the amount of participants who flat out refused to come near me and my box was hilarious.



After all this room hopping madness, and a little bit of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, we all marched outside for a "Holloween Parade". This turned out to be a valiant Korean attempt at guising/trick or treating. Not that I'm poking fun at this slightly skewed take on Hallowe'en, on the contrary, it's admirable that they've embraced it so much considering most Koreans have never heard of it. Our parade took us down the main street, where buckets of candy (that's "sweeties" to you or I) had been strategically left in the generous hands of the local ice-cream lady, fire station, and the man that runs the shop where you can but loads of rubbish. Like Rubik's Cubes, YuGiOh cards, HelloKitty paraphenalia, and paints in case your a sad geek with a half finished model airplane.





The elementary children in the afternoon received the same activities, except they had the dubious honour of watching Final Destination 3 instead of Charlie and the CF. There's no point describing the elementary party, as they are, for the most part, just taller, less cute, and less comical versions of the kindergarten. Harsh but true. It WAS funny seeing the reactions of a room full of 10-13 year olds as they watched the nude scene in the film. A barely concealed wave of titters and whispering. One particularly comical character named Kenny proceeded to excitedly shout across the room, "Chris Teacher....Happy?!". I had no come back to that one. The cheeky git.