Friday and Saturday we did not have school, instead we all went to a nearby event center to watch the 2007 Winter Festival, which was put on by our own students. This event really cannot be compared to anything in the U.S.A. It's not a Christmas pageant (it's too long for that) and it's not quite a pep rally, but it's sort of something that falls in between the two... In fact the winter festival was composed of two plays (Wizard of Oz and Cinderella), a Japanese, Chinese and English speech contest, a guest lecture by an alumni, a couple of performances by parents (dancing and a fashion show), guest performers from other schools who sang and danced, multiple performances by the dance club, another play about bullying in schools, a chorus competition between all of the 30 classes (10 classes in each grade), numerous singing competitions, a talent show, and lots of pep and school cheers interspersed throughout. I know you may be asking yourself: "How long did it take to do all of that?" The answer is: 13 hours on Friday and 8 hours on Saturday with a one hour break for lunch on both days. The students (all 1200 of them) basically sat in their seats the entire time. I'm not even sure they were allowed to leave the auditorium, because there were girls standing at the doors. My sister, Eunae, is part of the student association so she was very active and busy running things and even hosting part of the show.
Dorothy, the Tin Man, Scarecrow (Eunae) and the Lion from the Wizard of Oz. At one point Dorothy said "F#$! you!" to the wicked witch; all the girls in the auditorium got it but luckily my principal nor any other teacher heard or understood the meaning.
Between performances, they would pull out the "Lucky Box" and call a teacher up to the front to pull a name out of it; the winner got movie tickets. I was called up twice, the first time because my name was on the list and the second time because the girls started chanting my name. It was a little daunting to realize that 800 of the students in the autditorium (2/3) were my students! Eunae, my sister, is the student on the left. I think the "Lucky Box" was the students' favorite part of the program, because they would chant "Lucky Box" at every little break, sometimes even during the program...
One of my 2nd grade students singing an English pop song...
This is what the auditorium looked like. All the teachers' seats were in the front two rows, which was nice for the teachers; however, it also meant that the students were left to do be as noisy as they saw fit.
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