Halloween....Talkster Style...

...IN one of many new ‘traditions’ I’ve had to get used to being involved in this year, the end of October and Halloween has crept up on me in the fashion of many of the horrific things that the ‘holiday’ is associated with.

I use the term holiday loosely for Halloween because lets me honest, many of us probably haven’t been involved in celebrating it since before we were teenagers. I know that I haven’t donned a Halloween costume since I was about eight when one of the most anticipated nights of the year came along with the knowledge that after a few good hours of Trick or Treating lay the possibility of eating so many sweets and so much chocolate that it would feel like your teeth were going to fall out.

Well I guess this year being surrounded by so many children and my school like many others in Korea following its roots in American English, I soon realised that Halloween was going to be taken semi-seriously. The first clue I got was way back at the start of October when I went into the school to pick up my registers and saw that a few Halloween decorations had already started to be plastered on the walls and the windows. It’s not that, that kind of thing is confusing to be because coming from England I’m not shocked by seeing early preparations like the ones which are done for Christmas at the start of autumn.

We had a meeting on Tuesday to let us know exactly what would be going on during the day on Friday with my kids being the first to test out all the Halloween events and games followed by the rest of the school who would be arriving between 3 and 7 to enjoy the festivities.
I think our school probably had more plans than any other that I’d heard about from the rest of my football team mates on Thursday and come Friday when I got into class, preparations were well underway for an enjoyable afternoon.

I spent the morning with the kids making Halloween cards out of macaroni and after lunch the kids were each given a bag to go trick or treating with and they were all dressed up in their costumes pretty excited about spending the afternoon away from the classroom.
My school had invited each of the children’s parents to come to the school and give out candy so going over to the main school building led by me the kids would do into each room to say ‘Trick or Treat’ be given some candy and then have some photographs taken.

I was impressed that they’d actually been able to remember the phrase ‘Trick or Treat’ as we’d practiced it earlier on in the week and I didn’t have to remind them what to say too many times. Following them receiving candy from each parent we went outside and took some more pictures before heading to our first game of the afternoon which basically involved a home made piñata with candy inside.
The thought of putting a wiffle bat in front of my kids and letting them lay into two plastic bowls wrapped together and covered in tin foil was a pretty daunting prospect at first but thankfully everyone lived to tell the tale. My kids had about twenty whacks each and none of them could bust it open so it was left to myself and then one of the parents to finish off the whole things and let the kids rustle around on the floor for the sweets which burst out.

The next task was bobbing for apples, something which the kids completed reasonably easily and without too many complaints about getting water up their noses.
We next took part in eating cookies on a string which was a pretty enjoyable game, made only better by the fact that the kids parents decided to take part and I must admit that I probably could have stood there all day and bounced the string up and down whilst helpless people tried to grab hold of a cookie with no hands.

On to the ‘Viking Ship’ next which despite having no Nordic marking what-so-ever proved to be a huge success throughout the day. Charlie and Zach, who had joined us outside now, got a test of the ship and predicted some tears as the guy controlling the ship made sure that they were nice and shaken up before they got off. The kids had a fun ride on the ship with huge smiles on their faces throughout and only one child came off and didn’t look to impressed. Too much swinging I presume.

We finished off the afternoons events by a trip into the Haunted House which had been built on the fourth floor of our building especially for the occasion. My kids, fearing that they would be ‘scarred for life’ were able to walk through the haunted house with the lights on. Although they were a bit dubious about having to crawl through a tunnel in the dark on their hands and knees they were almost immediately made to laugh by Charlie jumping out on them in a mask!

With the Kindergarten kids done we had some time to ourselves before the regular school kids came to join in and this seemed like a perfect opportunity for me and Kevin to test out the Viking Ship. I’m not a big fan of pirate ships I’ll be honest but not daunted by the prospect of a child sized version of one, me and Kevin spent a good five minutes swinging backwards and forwards in fits of laughter before the smiles started to turn to feeling sick and needing to get off.

When it came time for regular classes to begin at 3pm, each teacher had to go to their classroom and explain to their kids what was going on for the rest of the afternoon. Then we pretty much let them loose to do whatever they wanted and told them to be back at quarter to the hour so that they could get a lollypop they’d earned for taking part and then head home before the next wave of kids arrived.

I was stationed for the whole afternoon on apple bobbing which was actually set up just in front of my house. Me and Betty, one of the Korean teachers had the tiresome job of emptying buckets or water and replacing apples for the duration of the sessions. She told me last year that the apple bobbing was done in one huge bowl but because of H1N1 this year they’d decided to play it safe and use different ones for each person who took part.

It was actually pretty fun to see the kids sticking their heads in the water and trying to get their teeth into bigger than average apples. For their efforts they got candy if they managed to pull the apple out and if there was four people and they were first then they got two.
Even though I was working on probably the most unglamorous of all the events it was fun to see all my kids dressed up and having fun.
I only have two classes on a Friday but I got to see all the students from my former 3pm class and also the ones from the 5pm class and 6pm class I teach on a Tuesday and Thursday.

At 7pm when all the kids were done we had the arduous task of cleaning everything up. This amazingly didn’t take very long and before we knew it, two hours earlier than usual, we were able to go and get ourselves some much deserved dinner.

The three of us headed off to the usual galbi restaurant where we were later joined by Zach and Haji who had been finishing everything off at the school.
Whilst we were eating, for about the fourth time since I have been in Korea in various locations, out of the blue a fight broke out on the table across the other side of the room.

Looking over at the table piled up with bottles of beer and soju it was hardly surprising but seeing two grown men going at it with people trying to hold them back and things going all over the place is something that will never register properly with me.
One of the guys was actually the owner of the restaurant who about an hour later sheepishly apologised to us for what had happened.
It’s still funny in some ways to me that for such a non threatening society Korean’s soon get riled up and once alcohol gets involved its bad news bears. They are obviously not allowed to fight in establishments like restaurants or bars but people usually have no qualms with then taking it out on the street. That’s just how it works here.

After the entertainment of a fight before our very eyes we headed up to It Bar for a few drinks and were joined by Anna and Hans. We spent most of the night just chatting and enjoying the fact that Halloween was all over and done with for another year and whilst Charlie and Zach headed off to Now Bar, Anna, Kevin and I decided it was time to come home and made our way back in a cab.

What the rest of the weekend holds for me I’m not too sure but I decided to use Halloween as a good excuse to post an extra blog on my website today. There’s a few photos from Halloween over at my usual photo gallery site as well if you want to take a look.

Have an enjoyable weekend, a happy Halloween and I’ll report back with the rest of the weekend’s events on Sunday.

Ben x

Avoiding the phrase “I don’t have time...”, will soon help you to realize that you do have the time needed for just about anything you choose to accomplish in life.

Bo Bennett