My Imperfect Destiny: Halloween In Korea

A picture that made me smile from back home :) My puppy dressed up for Halloween in her authentic Korean "hanbok" I bought in Seoul! :)

In Korea, they don't celebrate Halloween. But, I work at an English hagwon, and since Halloween is celebrated in Western countries, we celebrated it to let the students experience Western culture! The week of Halloween I taught the kiddos about costumes, trick or treating, jack-o-lanterns, witches, ghosts, vampires and all other ghoulish Halloween customs! It was a lot of fun. Since Halloween fell on a Sunday, we celebrated Friday afternoon. The kids were invited for a party and a market day. The students are rewarded for good behavior and completing their homework with signs or stickers on a "sign card". On Market Day, they can use their "signs" to buy toys, candy, and food. At the party, I was in charge of the "Culture Room" which was a pumpkin carving room and I'd planned a craft where we made felt bats out of the students' handprints. The pumpkin carving was HILARIOUS because in Korea the pumpkins are a little....different than typical American pumpkins. I was thinking orange, round, and hollow. But here, some of the pumpkins are green, some are orange, some are not hollow - they're actually more like the texture of an apple, and some aren't even round. I think one of the students brought a cucumber! You'll see pictures of a fellow foreigner, my friend Caspar, who helped a student carve not 1, but 2 faces on said cucumber jack-o-lantern! :) Fun times, I think the students had a blast, and honestly they've never really seen American pumpkins in person, so I guess non-hollow and cucumber Jack-O-Lanterns totally work. Enjoy the pictures! :) Many of the students dressed up in costume - it was adorable!