Our school Christmas program that we have been working on for about three months has finally come to fruition. The kids all did great–I think. I only got to see mine perform, but they were all so excited and looked so good in their costumes and there were no upset directors or parents, it must have gone well.

It was a long day for all of us. We held the program in a wedding hall quite some distance from the school. That meant carting all the kids and all their belongings and all their lunch and water and “just-in-case” stuff. Kim Teacher is really good at organizing my class and getting all their stuff together and then keeping up with it. I think I just walk around in a daze, overwhelmed by it all. She even carried–and used–a comb and spray bottle of water to spruce everyone up before the big production. Emily, one of the teachers of the five year old classes and the ballet teacher and the director of the production, had costumes and props all organized before we got there. She had gone the night before and set it all up–quite an undertaking! But it made our jobs that much easier.

We all assembled in this big room and got ready for the dress rehearsal. The children didn’t sit in the auditorium. They went from the room, down the hall, and lined up outside, waiting for their turn to perform.

Picture this: fifty plus children ages 4-7, excited, hungry, bored, waiting from 10:30-1:30 to do their thing; teachers getting them ready for their costume changes, their parts, trying to keep the noise level down–hah–and keeping up with all the stuff. One dress rehearsal just after we got there before the big show. After that was over, my only thought was, “You mean we have to do this all over again?!”

Picture this: freezing cold rooms and halls and helping little ballerinas into their tutus and little children lining up and waiting for their turn on stage. I had one scary moment: I was helping Hennah out of her Sugar Plum Fairy dance costume and on with her dress and her hair got stuck in the zipper and she was up next and it was the real production! I couldn’t even figure out how her hair got caught much less how to get it out and her hair was in a French braid, so pulling it through was not an option. Miraculously, I worked and worked with it and it came out. But I was really paniced for a few moments.

Picture this: some kids crying, some kids with stage fright, some kids with stage moxie and loving every minute of performing for parents and kin. It was quite an assortment.

The production went well. We had the older children learn lines from “T’was the Night Before Christmas” and intersperse it with Christmas songs and dances performed by all the classes. Most classes had two songs and most of them had some kind of costume and prop. My class, Wisdom and Power, did “Deck the Halls” and “Must be Santa.” I have four boys and three girls. We never know what our boys are going to do–anything from absolute, stubborn refusal, from complete zoning out during singing, to getting extremely loud and verbose. We could only hope that our handmade props would make it through all the rehearsals and to the final show.

At the end of “Deck the Halls” it looked odd that our kids just stood there and sang while all the other classes had choreographed dances and motions and props, so I came up with this idea of green streamers on a long stick that we could grab, hold out, and weave into a Christmas tree–like a Maypole. Uh, the weaving just wasn’t going to happen. Much too complicated. But after Kim figured out how to decorate the streamers, and the kids figured out how to hold them in a J and not pull over the whole tree, it turned out kind of neat.

For “Must Be Santa” the bosses insisted on costumes and bought them all red capes trimmed in white. With their red Santa hats and pom-pom cherry noses stuck on with masking tape, they really did look good as a group on stage. Of course, we had to explain to the boys that these were Superman capes and they looked really wicked in them. They did well. It’s a good thing we were singing along to canned music; otherwise, I don’t think the audience would have known there was actually a song involved to all the motions they were going through since their singing volume was just above a whisper!

It was cold, it was chaos, but Emily and all the teachers and, of course, the children pulled it off. The kids were excited to see their parents and relatives in the audience. They were proud of the job they did. They had fun–which is probably the most important part of the whole exercise.

But picture this: Me, eyes round and glassy eyed, smile weak but trying, head buzzing, and body stumbling to the van to take me back to the school for my after school class wondering, “Is it over yet?” I felt like Goldie Hawn in “Overboard” when Ken and the boys have to put her in the barrel of water and all she can say is “Blub, blub.”

(I’ve included a few picture on the photoblog)

December 17, 2009

For the past week I feel that I am on auto pilot, just going through the motions. I can’t put my finger on the reason why: it could be the below freezing weather that I walk to and from school in; it could be the settling into a routine that has become just that–routine; it could be that my days in Seoul and at this job are quickly coming to a close; it could be the Christmas season and how different it is here compared to home; it could be that this past weekend I faced extremes in humanity–its beauty and its ugliness–and haven’t quite come to terms with all that. And it could be a combination of all that and my brain is just saying, “I think I’ll take a break and let the body just get on with it”: autopilot.

It is really cold here. This morning when I left for work looking and walking like a penguin with all the bundling I had done to keep warm, it was 16 degrees Fahrenheit. (I’m working on recognizing Celsius but subtracting 32 and dividing by 9 and multiplying by 5 just to come up with a new number that tells me it’s cold outside is just too much!). And it didn’t warm up as the day went on. I’m finding I’m not really much good in cold weather. I’d rather be curled up with a warm blanket, a pot of hot tea, and a good book than anywhere else. Therefore: autopilot.

We’re getting close to the Christmas break, and since we’ve been at it since July without much of a break, the routines are entrenched. It’s time for a nice, long break to shake things up and help everyone forget all the things we have been struggling to learn in the past months, so we can begin again. Therefore: autopilot.

I will be leaving Seoul at the end of February, and as the time gets closer, I find my enthusiasm and creativity waning. It’s like I need to wind down this job to make room for the next teacher to take over. I think I unconsciously realize I had better not get too close to my students and colleagues which would make leaving that much more difficult. Therefore: autopilot.

Christmas here is a different kind of holiday. In the U.S. it’s a family time. There are months and months–like way before Halloween–of music and programs and parades and gift ideas and parties and traditions and advent and church services reminding us to remember the real reason for the season. Then the day itself is a day for family–nuclear, extended, or borrowed. Here, there are plenty of lights, and Hyundai Department Store has had a banner up since October reminding us to make Christmas 2010 a Dream Christmas–yep, I don’t get that one either–maybe it’s just a twenty foot typo! But this is not a family season. The music is not the same. The atmosphere is not the same. The churches are still very active reminding us of the reason, and some of their programs are unbelievably beautiful. But it’s not the same. We will work on the 24th. The 25th I will be packing for my trip to Vietnam and Cambodia, and I will leave on the 26th. Therefore: autopilot.

But I think the biggest contributor to my malaise is the emotional extreme of this past weekend. On Saturday Aeran and I went to Seoul Arts Center to watch and listen to the beautiful music to Swan Lake. I think it may have been my first full ballet besides Nutcracker. It was absolutely beautiful. My friend Daphne had sent me all kinds of information about the ballet–the story, what to look for in the dances and the dancers, variations that could happen, nuances in the music. I felt I was prepared. I took my binoculars so I could scrutinize the costumes as well as the facial expressions of the dancers–were they going through the motions or really feeling their parts. Well, I don’t know much about the ballet, but this one was absolutely beautiful. While the major performers were outstanding and did the major moves Daphne had told me to watch out for, the swan chorus stole the show for me. They were so beautiful that I forgot they were dancers and saw them only as swans. Such grace–such synchronization–such beauty! I had no problem with “the suspension of disbelief.” I believed! Tchaikovsky’s music that we are all so familiar with made so much sense when I saw the story unfold. Beauty–music–art–all came together in those two and a half hours on Saturday night.

Sunday I met a group that turned out to be young, college exchange students for the most part and went to the House of Sharing, a home for the remaining Comfort Women conscripted by the Japanese in World War II. It was about an hour’s trip into the countryside to the home and museum to learn these women’s stories and their role in the history of WWII. I thought it was interesting that many of the young women who had come to learn about this had been influenced by their college history and literature courses that emphasized feminism. The museum is well done and informative. The volunteer guides are knowledgeable and sincere in getting out the message about this dark side of history. We met and were delightfully entertained by a couple of the women living in the home, who didn’t come to tell their story–they’ve told it so many times and it’s there for all to read on the web site, http://www.houseofsharing.org/–but came to greet us as welcome visitors. It was interesting that as we were singing and laughing in the gathering hall, we were joined by a group of Japanese tourists. It seems that the Japanese are very interested in these women’s cause and contribute much to the House of Sharing in time and talents. Many of these women have gone through art therapy to deal with the demons of their past. Their pictures are on display in the museum–poignant and moving.

So in one weekend I had seen how art can be used to express moving, emotional beauty and moving, emotional degradation. Perhaps it’s these extremes that have put me on autopilot.

The problem with autopilot is you’re being steered by a preordained course. Winter will take its time; the job will continue to bring its routine but also its surprises; art will be there for the seeking; history will unfold in the search for truth. I’m thinking it’s time to get back into the pilot’s seat.