Thursday, November 29, 2007
American Thanksgiving in Korea
Korea has it's own Thanksgiving, it's called Chuseok, I added a wikipedia explanation below.
Chuseok, also called Han-ga-wi (한가위) (from archaic Korean for "great middle"), is a major three-day holiday in Korea celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar Korean calendar. As a celebration of the good harvest, Koreans visit their ancestral hometowns and share a feast of Korean traditional food.
Of course no one celebrates American holidays in Korea, except for people on the military bases. I was invited to go to a friends house on a military base in Daegu to have dinner with them on Thanksgiving but since I had to work that was impossible. So I ended up not doing anything for Thanksgiving, the American one, I ate some potatoes and corn but that was it. I have never been a person who really got all that into holidays so for me it wasn't a big deal but it was strange that a week before Thanksgiving I didn't even realize that it was coming up. It wasn't until I was watching the Buckeyes beat Michigan that I was told it was just around the corner. If I hadn't have had a video call to my family I might have forgotten about it completely. I also got a email from my friends in Daegu with a picture of their baby in a Thanksgiving outfit, so that would have reminded me too.
I guess this blog is pointless,its just about how easy it is to forget about American holidays when you are on the other side of the world. Christmas is celebrated here so I will be able to celebrate it with the rest of the country and my fellow teachers. Businesses and Cities have already began to decorate places with Christmas decorations. I was in Seoul last weekend and we saw a public square being decorated with a huge Christmas display and what might have been a skating rink or large stage.
I also ate at Bennigan's and they had their Christmas decorations up and were playing all Christmas music. SO I guess even without a Thanksgiving they put the Christmas decorations up the weekend after it regardless.