Manners Training.

So last week a lovely Korean woman came to LCI to teach the kindergarteners about tradition. All the kids wore their hanbok to school. It was adorable. I got a set, too... but I there are no surviving pictures, as it was a rather unfortunate situation. The skirt was about four inches too short, and the top had a little trouble stretching to fit my very unKorean cup size. Yikes. The kids looked good, though.

First they were taught how to execute a deep bow. They started in a standing position, slowly lowered themselves to their knees, and put their faces all the way to the floor. Then they gave us (the teachers) a Korean blessing.

Next they were taught how to drink tea. The left hand is placed at the base of the cup and the right hand is wrapped around. The middle finger should be at the lip of the cup. As you can see, they cared less about the proper way to hold the cup than they did about the tea.

Finally, they made tasty traditional "candies", which were more like cookies, really. Hunks of ginger dough and little moulds were handed around and the students each made several.

The entire lesson was taught in Korean, so I didn't glean as much traditional Korean knowledge as I would have hoped, but it was still interesting, and great to see my kids in their cultural element.

Being here for nearly six months now has made me a little envious of the ancient traditions and deep cultural identity Koreans have. I've begun to think pretty seriously about taking a trip to the Netherlands in the next couple of years so that I can learn a bit more about my traditions and cultural heritage. Any thoughts?