the full moon and thanksgiving- korean-style

So it has come and gone now. Yah, I'm talking about my final Korean thanksgiving holiday. There are a few people I'd like to thank at this time.

First, I'd like to thank my kids. They're so darn cute in their costumes! Makes me happy for the better part of the day to see the girls twirling around in their multicolored, bejeweled, embroidered hanbuks and the boys being hyper-masculine in their little suits complaining of the itchy ankle ties and how three layers of shirts are making them hot. I'd like to thank them all!

Next, I'd like to thank my Director for providing me with yet one more opportunity to humiliate myself to all of Korea (ok, just to Ilsan and specifically the Dong-Ah Apartment area). Without her care and concern, I would have been wearing my regular street clothes on this fine day. Instead, thanks to her, I was strapped into a too-small woman's hanbuk that managed to, simultaneously, make my chest look larger than normal and cut off my lung capacity just above the aforementioned chest. Fantastic. Oh yes, my kids discovered that because the hanbuk was smaller, the skirt part kept opening up in the back. I still had on my jeans and t-shirt, but they thought it was hilarious that once I bent over, the skirt opened up in the back (it's a wrap-around skirt which ties above the chest). So I shook what butt I had at them, and they shook theirs back...we are such a mature class!

Finally, I'd like to thank the Korean adjumma (read: old lady) who felt it was her moral obligation to do what was probably the worst part of my day. She felt it was important to stop me and my kids walking back to school in costume and tell me in korean that my hanbuk was too small. In order to understand clearly what this woman was stopping to tell me, I asked my kids to repeat it and translate it for me. No, no, no, she did NOT say that I looked pretty in my hanbuk (I know I didn't...but at least all my coworkers and kids felt it was necessary to lie to me about it!) but that I was too BIG for my hanbuk. She then nodded to my kids and went on her merry way. I'd like to thank her for that final experience in Korean costume. Really, thank you.

PS- I yelled down the street to her, "Yah, I KNOW I'm not small, but I'm not KOREAN! I have curves!"