Showing posts with label Jaegi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jaegi. Show all posts

Friday, 28 September 2012

Happy Chuseok

This weekend marks the start of Chuseok festival and a wonderful five day weekend! Chuseok is a Korean holiday where people honour their ancestors and give thanks for the harvest. Korean families will get together and eat songpyeon, a special rice cake. They have a ceremonial dinner lead by the eldest son of the eldest son of the family and they will pay their respects to their ancestors. As Ric and I don't have any Korean ancestors we're going camping!

On Wednesday this week we had Chuseok day with the kids at school and we learnt some traditional Korean games.

First of all, we made rice cakes. They're surprisingly easy to make; mix flour and warm water until its a sticky dough, mould into a bowl shape, add filling (sugar, sesame or red bean paste), seal and steam.

Then for the games. First we played yut. Traditionally played on the first day of the lunar new year, yut is a type of board game where you throw four sticks to determine how many spaces around the board you move. Next was Tuho. A very simple game of throwing arrows (or decorative sticks) into a container.

Tuho


We then played Jaegi; the children had to do keepy-uppies with a weight adorened with feathers and coloured paper.

Kicking the Jaegi

Finally, my personal favourite, the one-legged chicken fight. I loved this game simply because schools in England would never ever allow it to happen. The game comprises standing on one leg and holding your other leg bent at the knee, and bumping into your opponent until they fall over. Health and safety crazy Britain would never encourage such a "violent" game. After all the kids had had a one-legged match me and Ric took to the floor and tried to out-hop one another, with all the girls cheering for me and all the boys cheering for Ric. It was fun.


Mine and Ric's kindergarten classes demonstrating the one-legged chicken pose.

Preparing for battle.

The heart warming post-fight celebrations! <3