Christmas
WOW. It takes lots of time to finish a post in English, and to be honest I'm not sure that I'm using a right term and phrase..And it is inevitable to face lots of problems during translating sentences from Korean to English through my brain.. But at the same time I believe that it will be better and better and someday I can speak and write English as a pre-native English speaker..Christmas in Korea and America
Christmas is not a big deal in Korea
I still remember the Christmas in 2009. One of my best friend asked me to go to the movie theater to watch "Avatar" in 3D! It sounded great to me, as Avatar was a renowned movie with a lot of praises and nice comments at that time, and someone even started to compare this movie with the great masterpiece "Titanic". (Later, Avatar broke the record of Titanic in the number of audience as a result.... Well... both of them were tremendous movie, but I think Titanic is a little bit better..)
So, I enjoyed the best movie in the world with friends in 3D, and.... that was it! I even cannot remember when was the last time that I got the presents on the day of Christmas....Yes.. Christmas is not a big deal in S.Korea.. Well, I mean it might be a pretty big deal to Christians or some couples,,, but it wasn't to me,, and I think my parents started to think that I'm too old to get a present in Christmas since my middle school years..
And I could communicate with my friends through Facebook during this Christmas break, and the funniest thing was..... They should took the final semester test until this Christmas Eve!!! Even though Korean high schools are pretty challenging and getting a lot of bad reputations from their students, they are not that much cruel not to let their students take a rest during the big holiday like Chuseok( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuseok) or Lunar new year ... So it means.... Yes! Christmas is not that much a big holiday in Korea!....
My first Christmas in MN
This week was my first Christmas holiday in the United States. Of course even before this week I could find many ceremonies and decoratings for being ready for the Christmas such as choosing and and cutting down the Christmas trees and decorating them. Oh, I could find the difference even in the way of treating trees, as people usually cut down the trees and put them in their own house in the US while I've never seen a person to cut down the trees just for the Christmas in Korea.
Well anyway the first impressive thing was that there are almost several weeks of break not only in school but also in some firms(But I was depressed after I heard that there are no winter vacation in school after this), as most of school vacation in winter start after Christmas and before New year in Korea.
And the second one was that all family members celebrate Christmas all together! All 3 generations from grandparents to their grandchildren spend their time together on the day of Christmas Eve and Christmas, eating meals and saying hello to each other. Not only embracing and kissing each other with lots of happiness, they also spend their time for the "best moment" in Christmas, opening the Christmas gift that they got! Waiting for my turn to open the box, guessing what I got as a present by touching to feel the texture of the inside of the box was really fun.
And the last one was the church and the Christmas, even though all my dad's siblings are all Christians, my parents don't have their own religion at all, so I didn't have chance to go to church on Christmas Day. But as my host family Finks are Christian, I could go to church on Christmas Day for the first time in my life. It was holy,solemn and beautiful.
With these new impressive experiences, I also meet new nice people during the Christmas, and it was really amazing to meet them and spend terrific time celebrating the Christmas. I just want to say thank you to all of them.
Oh. I almost forgot to write this! What I got as presents were Minnesota sweater, headband, warm fluffy shoes, a lot of Korean foods, cute screen wiper, glass with Christmas decoration, card game, hand warmers and 10 bucks. I just appreciate to giving me these amazing and lovely gifts, and at the same time, an amazing memorials about my Christmas in Minnesota.
Gunho Park
Well anyway the first impressive thing was that there are almost several weeks of break not only in school but also in some firms(But I was depressed after I heard that there are no winter vacation in school after this), as most of school vacation in winter start after Christmas and before New year in Korea.
And the second one was that all family members celebrate Christmas all together! All 3 generations from grandparents to their grandchildren spend their time together on the day of Christmas Eve and Christmas, eating meals and saying hello to each other. Not only embracing and kissing each other with lots of happiness, they also spend their time for the "best moment" in Christmas, opening the Christmas gift that they got! Waiting for my turn to open the box, guessing what I got as a present by touching to feel the texture of the inside of the box was really fun.
And the last one was the church and the Christmas, even though all my dad's siblings are all Christians, my parents don't have their own religion at all, so I didn't have chance to go to church on Christmas Day. But as my host family Finks are Christian, I could go to church on Christmas Day for the first time in my life. It was holy,solemn and beautiful.
With these new impressive experiences, I also meet new nice people during the Christmas, and it was really amazing to meet them and spend terrific time celebrating the Christmas. I just want to say thank you to all of them.
Oh. I almost forgot to write this! What I got as presents were Minnesota sweater, headband, warm fluffy shoes, a lot of Korean foods, cute screen wiper, glass with Christmas decoration, card game, hand warmers and 10 bucks. I just appreciate to giving me these amazing and lovely gifts, and at the same time, an amazing memorials about my Christmas in Minnesota.
Gunho Park
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