Sunday, December 26, 2010

Christmas Eve

We were invited to join a local ward for their Christmas Eve Camping party.
They rent a nearby by condo outside of Daejeon and a bit up a mountain side.
This is the main room of the condo. It has a sink and cook top with several cabinets.
That is all. The two bedrooms have a closet that hold these big pink blankets which will serve as our beds. Everything is done on the floor, talking, playing games, cooking, eating.
It really does seem to make sense to Dad and I. Koreans do not devote any space to pieces of furniture that take up floor space. A coffee table would seem foolish.
Unlike this condo, a typical Korean home would have a small kitchen (that is on one wall of the main living area, a small kitchen table, a couch, a simple entertainment center to hold the TV, and one wall of bookshelves full of books especially for children. Those things would be in a main room like this.
This is a ward member who rode up with us. He taught at an university in USA so his English is very good. He was very much a part of the activities all night. He likes, almost insists that he be called Old Fogey. This is dinner. They BBQ their meat over a large grill, and eat outside in tents with plastic walls. It was so cold.
After dinner entertainment was Karaoke singing for the adults. The children watched movies downstairs, teenages played UNO in a room, and the adults sang. The lady in front is Sister Jong. She is my translator when I speak in the Daejeon area. She is delightful and very thoughtful to me. When I first met her, I was taken back by how beautiful she is. Several songs would come up on the screen in English so Sister Kim (who is just outside of this next picture...but is who I am pointing to) got me to sing Dancing Queen with her. You can see the reaction of everyone. I told them that I can be quite silly in my own language. The program scores you on how well you do. We scored 100.
Missionaries are in the habit of bed at 10:30, and this party was going strong, so we thanked everyone for a great evening and excused ourselves and drove home. My nice warm soft bed felt great.
Merry Christmas