What a Day!

This day was unbelievable. It started out similar to nearly every other day. Well, not exactly.

It snowed again last night. I noticed it at around 10:30 p.m. when I was walking home after watching "SuperGirl" at Chad's. That movie is so bizarre, and really so terrible. But anyway, it was snowing. It was great. I could hear people in the distance yelling and screaming...probably having another snowball fight. That or someone was being killed. Whatever.

So I woke up to a beautiful sunny day with snow everywhere. However, that was the most normal thing that happened all day.

View from my palace--
A leaf in the snow--
At around 4:15, as I was just starting the "Snowy Mountain Challenge" game, one of the other edutainers came in and stopped me, saying I needed to leave immediately--I had to fill in for Derek in the show. I am Derek's understudy for the show "Winter Wonderland" which just opened on Dec. 6. I'd been to a lot of the rehearsals, and I learned the choreography...but I had never tried on the costume, I'd never done a FULL rehearsal on the stage. Oddly enough, yesterday was my first day even having any kind of rehearsal on the stage.

Anyway, I started to freak out a little bit. I had 45 minutes to prepare. The show was going to start at 5.

So, I quickly walked over to the Concert Hall and entered the dressing room. There's Derek, swollen ankle and all. He had twisted it in the previous show (we do 3-4 shows each day--they're only 40 minutes long). All the other actors were there, already in costume, getting ready for the show. Yikes.

I quickly went over all the choreography in my head. I wasn't worried about the lines, I knew those...and honestly, even if I didn't do them exactly--we are not presenting Shakespeare to these middle-school age Korean children. I could make my way through it. But the choreography was another matter entirely.

You'll note from my previous blog that my foot has been hurting. Well, my ankle isn't twisted or anything...but my foot is still in a little bit of pain. The pain however wasn't my main concern. My main concern was making sure that I both knew and remembered how to execute the choreography--correctly.

In the show, my character is Raggedy Andy; Tonya plays Raggedy Ann. Fortunately for me, she is also one of the choreographers. So, we quickly went on stage, before the audience arrived, and quickly worked on some of the dances. I was in my socks.

Then I saw the shoes I was to wear. They were ballet shoes. Black, thin, ballet shoes. Okay. Well, without being graphic...they were small...and it hurt my feet. Whatever. Better that then go barefoot.

So, I did the show. I got my mic on, I suited up in the alien costume (don't ask) and I went out there and I did it. It wasn't perfect, by any stretch of any imagination; but I had fun doing it, and I did my best. I didn't nail MOST of the choreography; but I said my lines MOSTLY correctly without using bad language, and no one died. Those are my two indicators. "Did I use bad language and did anyone die?" If I can answer NO to both those questions; I've done okay.

I was not "nervous" per se, but I was worried that I would mess something up for someone else. I don't think that happened...at least not dramatically. I didn't knock Chris over while he was using the stilts. I didn't punch a penguin. It's a very exciting show--a lot goes on. You just gotta see it.

I think Derek will be fine tomorrow, for the 3 performances that are happening...so I don't think I'll have to go on again. I'm slightly worried about my foot, because certainly doing all the dancing and jumping around causes it pain; but I'm ready if I need to go on. I've never been an understudy before--it's quite exciting. Called to duty in a moment's notice. I'm like a Minuteman--ready to do battle within a minute's notice. I guess more accurately, I would be a Fortyfiveminuteman; but it's the principle.

Okay, that's not all. So, the show was fun. I'm glad I did that, it was very exciting. Several weeks ago, some of the edutainers who've been here the longest planned a return trip to a children's home they've visited before. It is basically an orphanage/group home for abused or abandoned children. Many in our group have been before. This time we were to go and sing Christmas carols with them and for Santa to bring them candy. That was tonight.

I just got home.

The home (arrow is 2nd floor where we were)--
What an overwhelmingly amazing experience. If I don't return there at least 10 times before I leave Korea, I think I will have done a disservice to myself and certainly to the kids.

The place is about 30 minutes away.

We arrived at 7:30 p.m. tonight, and could only stay an hour, as the children have to go to bed. The children (around 40) were assembled on the second floor in what I assume is their "play" room. It has hardwood floors and there is a slightly raised stage at the front, with a piano. There is also a big screen TV with microphones and what appears to be their own personal Noreabong (karaoke) machine.

When we walked into the room, they were all seated on the floor. As soon as we walked through the door, they started to wave and loudly say, "Hello!" It was immediately overwhelmingly positive. We had to remove our shoes, as is customary. I could say we were bombarded by children...but bombarded is much too serious a word. There were 12 of us, and we all had kids surrounding us, shaking our hands, saying things to us, both in English and Korean. Some kids simply wanted to shake our hands, others wanted hugs. Throughout the visit, several kids played with the little patch of facial hair I have under my bottom lip. Also, they found the hair on my arms fascinating. I could speculate that this is because Korean men do not have much hair, facially or otherwise, but that would just be speculation.

I'd say there were around 10 middle school age kids, and 30 elementary school age kids. Once we all made our way into the room, we assembled on the stage, and the kids sat on the floor in front of us. The woman in charge, who couldn't be more than 40 years old herself, began to introduce us individually to the kids. She would say something to the children in Korean, and they would say, in unison, "What is your name?" and we would answer. Once we said our name, "My name is Jason", they would all loudly say, "JASON" and laugh. They did it to everyone...especially Candy, because candy is a word they're very familiar with. It was adorable.

Kids (x2)--
After we were introduced, we began to sing various Christmas carols, including "Jingle Bells" and "We Wish You A Merry Christmas", etc. The kids would sing along when they knew the song. Those two are ones they know pretty well.

The group on stage--
Once we finished singing, we all went into the audience and just started playing with the kids. What's remarkable to mention is, though it may come as no surprise, Korean kids are exactly the same as any other kids. Kids love to play. Girls generally do their own specific things, boys generally do their own specific things. Boys like to climb and hit. Korean boys are no different...I'm speaking from personal experience. Let me just say, I'm glad I was wearing several pairs of pants.

Kids were literally climbing in, around, over, and through me. I was attacked from every angle. I did the spin thing that all kids love, where you grab their hands, they grab your hands, and you spin them around so quickly their legs come off the ground. They enjoyed that. I was cautious not to hurt anyone...though kids seem to have no threshold of pain. They just run all over each other, nearly all the time. Remarkable.

Kids Attack!--
Somehow, I got this hand-slap game going. Not the painful kind where you rest your hands atop the other persons, and they maliciously slap your hand if you're not quick enough to pull away; but the one where you clap your hands together then clap your right hand and the other person's right hand together, then your hands together again, then left hand to left hand, etc. I never really played that as a child, nor did I find it fun or amusing. So this night, I didn't originally intend for it to be a game, I was simply giving a kid a high-five, and it kept going. Well, it was fun for the one kid...but then nearly EVERY SINGLE child wanted to play it with me. So I had kids pushing other kids out of the way to play, and I'd show them how to do it, and we'd play for a bit, then another kid would shove them, and they'd learn how to play; this went on basically throughout the entire time I was there. After a kid would play for a few seconds, he/she would run away and do something else; but they'd eventually be back. I was dragging kids from both arms and carrying kids on my back and spinning kids around and playing the hand-clap game. Exhausting.

Then it came time for Santa to give out candy. Talk about insanity. The place went hog wild. But we got them into a line, and they came up and got some candy. When they'd all received 2 pieces each, that's when the real chaos started. Santa began throwing the candy out into the crowd, well this was like a shark attack. Kids were flying around at warp speed. Since the floor was hardwood, and of course, no one is wearing shoes, so they're literally playing slip and slide all over the floor. Great idea, Santa!

Santa--
We played for a little while longer, but our hour was soon up. We took a group picture with Santa. The kids all said "Bye" and we began to gather our things and the children began to disperse. A few hung around to literally hang on us, which was fine by me. The kids were all generally sweet and so cute. This one girl in pink came to me and said, "Bye" and I gave her a hug and said, "Merry Christmas". It was just incredible.

This same girl had played the hand-slap game with me about 50 times, and during the middle of my time there, I was getting very warm, so I removed my sweater. I had a long sleeve shirt on underneath that, but the girl saw me put my sweater on top of the shoe closet at the entry way. As I was nearing my shoes, she walked over, reached way up to the top, and grabbed my sweater for me. I said thank you in English and Korean. She was so kind. Then I took her hand and we walked down the dark stairway to get back outside. She started to count the number steps in English. There were 19 steps, and she made it to 11 all on her own. I counted with her from twelve to nineteen. Precious.

This visit wasn't just to sing carols or visit with the children, we'd also participated in a 60/40 raffle for the home. We bought tickets, and 60% of the money raised would go to the orphanage (who gets 60% of their funding from the government and the rest from donations), the other 40% would go to one lucky winner. I didn't win, but no matter. Tasha, the person who headed this whole thing up, went to the office with the head lady to give her the money. So a few of us waited outside with the kids who had stayed behind with us.

The girl in pink stayed with me. I would say she was between 10-12 years old, and she spoke very good English. She started to say goodbye, but she was being very funny about it. Before we walked down the steps, she had said goodbye, and I repeated it, but I was being silly and I sort of made a sad face and made sobbing noises. So she started doing this to me. It was very funny. At some point, we started singing the word "Goodbye" and she started to conduct my singing. I was being silly and singing like an opera singer (a girl in this case), and she thought it was hilarious. She would lower her hands to make me sing quieter and then bring her hands up to sing louder. Then she and another girl started to sing like it to. We did this for about 5 minutes. It was quite amusing.

When it was truly time for us to leave, the two girls who I'd been singing with took my hands and we walked to the taxis. We did some more singing, and they showed me some funny dances before I got into the taxi. I hugged them both and said thank you and Merry Christmas.

The girl in pink ran along side the taxi as we were leaving and kept singing, so I kept my window down and I was singing out the window. I can't describe what that feels like. It was just...overwhelmingly positive.

The Girl in Pink--
If I don't return there at least 10 times before I leave Korea, I think I will have done a disservice to myself and certainly to the kids.

What a day.