Yay! Propaganda!

Today is Mokpo Citizens' Day, apparently. As someone who is lucky enough to work in a school where even the smallest holiday is celebrated with (class-canceling) gusto, I was quite open to the idea of spending some time listening to my students sing or dance or whatever they were going to do instead of teaching.

For two hours, I sat through presentations made by students (all with pretty much the same powerpoint) in Korean while the kids who were supposed to be listening attentively strangled each other and made each other cry.

Highlights included:

• ... the discovery that there is not 1 but FOUR different songs about how great Mokpo is. The lyrics are along the lines of "blah blah Yudal-san blah blah Goha-do blah blah Samhak-do". When sung repeatedly (think approximately seven times each, and no, I am not exaggerating because I don't need to), they may induce seizures.
• ... cute overload - an absolutely tiny Grade 1 girl did a presentation in a very squeaky little voice (while the hordes throttled each other on the floor).
  
• ... "Mokpo is beautifull" - a presentation in English!
• ... two poorly animated (why? Isn't this Korea?) historical propaganda cartoons about how the great General Lee beat back those horrible Japanese pirates. The snake-ball of fighting Grade 2 boys stopped momentarily for that.
• ... the realization that there is something somewhat disturbing about 120 children chanting "Sa-bul-nak-chi!" to the same beat as the "Dae-han-min-guk" soccer chant (sabulnakchi = live baby octopus).

And, yeah. So that was my morning. How about yours?