- March 3, 2012, Saturday.
- My curly-haired friend Melissa asked me to join her in a "Korean 101" workshop a week and a half ago. The fee was 600php, and I was initially reluctant to shell out that much money. Melissa sent me a link to the coverage of the workshop, as well as the credentials of the lecturer, and I felt like my money would go a long way.
- Melissa was kind enough to pay for me after she happened to see the contact person for the workshop in a certain K-Pop-related event. Of course, it is also a given that Melissa had been spazzing about this event all-week long.
- The event was a all-day cultural-day event, held at Beehive Events Place in Sikatuna Village, Quezon City. The workshop was taught by Mrs. Cherish Maningat-Bae, a Filipino who studied MA Theater Directing at the Korean National University for the Arts. She is currently a theater actress and director based in Korea, appearing in plays and some television shows and movies in Korea, and is also married to a Korean. She was assisted by Ms. Kring and Mr. Edward. They had limited slots for the event, which meant that we had to reserve for our slots asap.
- Melissa and I arrived at the venue an hour and ten minutes earlier, after riding the LRT to Anonas and getting a cab to the venue. It was much more efficient than the suggested way-of-commuting in the reservation-confirmation e-mail sent to us. Since we were too early, we just had breakfast in one of the nearby restaurants in the village.
- Our workshop started at 10:05, with me and an American as the only men in the group of 25(?.) We had a three-hour language session, which was just a Hangeul (Korean alphabet) lesson. Although the handouts provided some material for basic conversations, we were not able to tackle them due to time constraints. Still, I think the Hangeul lesson was comprehensive enough - it's just that for those without background in Hangeul, it could be confusing and overloading. As for those who cannot speak, or without background in Hangugo (Korean language,) it would have been quite a loss since we lacked time, unless they review the handouts given to us.
- Come lunch time, we had a Korean cooking class. First, we made "saek saek jumuk bap" or colorful Korean rice balls. The green rice balls had more seaweed, the yellow ones with boiled egg yolk, and the pink ones with Spam. They were easy to make, and to make it more fun, the organizers wanted to have a contest. We were asked to pair up, make our own rice balls, and the teams were judged on presentation. Melissa and I were one of the three teams who won.
- The second dish demonstrated to us was "maejuri al jorim," or boiled soy quail eggs. This side dish was cooked for us, since we didn't have individual stoves, but it was easy enough for us to make on our own elsewhere. The third dish was also a side dish, called "ori muchim," or cucumbers with red chili sauce. (The red sauce was sort of the same sauce used in making kimchi or tteokbokgi.) It was a quick side dish that could be made in around 15 minutes or less. It was delicious, and not too spicy.
- The bulk of the afternoon session was about Korean culture. We first discussed greetings, which included the types of bows. I was used as a sample for the male bowing style because of my casual hanbok. Teehee. After greetings, other aspects of culture like food, drinking, dating, transportation, table manners, people, and some places to visit were discussed. I felt that this was very informative and useful, since Mrs. Bae was able to enhance her lecture with her experiences of living in Korea. Since Mrs. Bae was relatively young, she was able to make us relate to her experiences very effectively and vividly.
- The last part of the afternoon was about Korean hairstyles and make up. Although this portion was obviously targeted to the women, I found it interesting how Koreans differed their makeup styles than how most women would do their makeup. To keep it short, I can just say that Korean makeup gives judgement to the statement "simplicity is beauty." Truly, the Koreans make their natural beauty standout through makeup, which I think is quite ironic to the quite common plastic-surgery norm.
- We ended the session with giveaways, and prizes for the food-presentation contest during lunch time. We won a Highcut issue, and I just gave Melissa and my copy to Melissa since she wanted it a lot. After that, and a few photo ops, we both went home. I was as tired as hell, but Melissa kept spazzing stuff to me in the train, while I was explaining the concepts of Hangeul to her. Yes, today was one of the best opportunities I spent my 600php on, no doubt.
No comments:
Post a Comment