Carnation Days
Last week saw the celebration of both Children's Day (어린이 날, on 5 May) and Parents' Day (어버이 날, on 8 May) in Korea. KBS World provides a short history of the two with the following:
Children’s Day in Korea traces its origin to Bang Jeong-hwan (방정환), a children’s advocate and independence fighter from the early 20th century. On May 1, 1923, Bang and his friends organized the first Children’s Day in an effort to promote the health and happiness of Korea’s children. It was originally celebrated on the first of May and continued as such until 1928, when the holiday was changed to the first Sunday in May. But the holiday was prohibited by the Japanese government from 1939 until Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule in 1945.
Following liberation, Children’s Day was again celebrated on the first Sunday in May, starting on May 5, 1946. Later, the holiday was permanently changed to May 5. The day has been observed as a national holiday since 1970. Also, May 8 was designated as Mother’s Day in 1956, and the name was changed to Parents’ Day in 1973. May is often called “Family Month” in Korea, because of these two celebratory occasions, along with Married Couples’ Day on May 21.
Many of my students were surprised to hear that the United States splits Parents' Day in two by celebrating Mother's Day and Father's Day as separate events. However, there was one class near the end of the day that mentioned how 8 May was initially intended as a day for mothers until "fathers got sad that they didn't have a day of their own". It's very common to see students offer carnations to their parents, which is what most of my students said they would do following class.
Today, 15 May, is also a holiday in Korea. This one is Teachers' Day (스승의 날) and sees students give carnations and small gifts to teachers. According to the summary posted at Wikipedia, Teachers' Day has been observed since 1963, or 1964 down in Chunju City -- although that may actually be a misspelling of Chungju; 충주.
Originally it was started by a group of red-cross youth team members who visited their sick ex-teachers at hospitals. The national celebration ceremony had been stopped between 1973 and 1982 and it resumed after that. On the celebration day, teachers are usually presented with carnations by their students, and both enjoy a shorter school day. Ex-students pay their respects to the former teachers by visiting them and handing a carnation. Many schools now close on Teacher's Day because of the rampant bribery implicit in the expensive gifts often given to teachers. Schools can use the day to have an outing for the teachers.
Several of my students had presents for me last year - no carnations though - and you can read about what did happen in this entry. I'll warn you that it includes a cute story about a lesson on negative imperatives that was derailed by a student with a crush on her teacher. The picture above is the fancy pen mentioned in the older entry. I still use it in class, although the body occasionally falls off if I'm not careful.
Just for fun I went out and bought three carnations for the teachers at my Korean academy earlier tonight. There was a bit of a worry over whether the flower shop would be open at nine o'clock at night but, fortunately, I didn't have any problems. Well, apart from the white guy who interrupted me while I was talking with the shopkeeper to ask, "Hey man, you speak English?" He then tried giving me a flyer for a local bar serving $1.50 tequila shots. I handed it back and said "No thanks, I'm not interested in tequila. You might want to save the flyer for someone who'll appreciate the offer more", which was met with a somewhat presumptuous "Oh, you don't drink, huh?". You know, if it'll let me get back to my conversation with the florist, sure, I'm a teetotaler.