Today is Children’s Day in S. Korea, a national holiday, and judging by the two-million people in Pyeongchon Central park today, a big holiday for families. (The number quoted in the previous sentence is an exaggeration – there is no way that many people would fit in PC Central Park. It’s simply meant to connote my surprise over the quantity of people in the park today. Hundreds of people would be a more accurate estimation.) A great number of these people were children.

There where children in strollers, children on bicycles, children on roller blades, and children on skateboards. I guess you could say there were many children on wheels.

Children not on wheels were involved with familial activities such as flying kites, catching balls or playing chase; this despite the limited number of square footage (meter-age) available per individual. Still more families could be seen sitting on blankets on the grass eating picnic lunches or just relaxing with their shoes off. One family appeared to have ordered their picnic food from a restaurant as I saw a man on a scooter delivering them their food. I can just imagine the directions they must have given over the cell phone when ordering: “Ah, yes, we will be the Korean family of  four on the green blanket in front of the blue tent right next to the croquet court.” Made me wish I could speak better Korean.

I can’t imagine Americans celebrating children quite to this degree. In terms of scale and participation, today’s holiday  is more akin to the American Labor Day. Schools are closed for the week, parents take off from work and most acadamies and hagwons are closed, except of course, ChungDahm.

Though many students did not attend class this evening, the ever vigilant instructors of ChungDahm English and Critical Thinking were on the front lines ready to deliver a little edu-tainment to any child who appeared. I took the stance that providing education for chlidren on Children’s Day is the ultimate in celebrating children. The students didn’t really buy it though.

Fortunately, Kim ChungDahm, the fictional entity that makes all upopular rules and decisions at ChungDahm, allowed teachers to pass out candy suckers – a rare treat since we are normally strictly forbidden from giving students food. The irony of this gesture was not lost on the students. Nonthelsess, we were a little less hated as a result.