Chilbo (Korean Enameling) Class #4

I am trucking right along in chilbo. This week she had me redo the pendant I made last week. Last week, it just didn't look right. This one looks perfect. The pendant on the right used stringers for stems and dots of wet enamel to make the flowers.


This is what it looked like before firing.

Nan also showed me these pins she was working on. She said she bought the pins in Seoul and added her own chilbo creations.

She also gave me this. Can you believe it is an aluminum pendant layered with hanji paper. Then she painted on it. I couldn't believe how beautiful it is.

Nan also got me set up with hanji lessons and maedeup lessons. The hanji studio is right around the corner from hers and I was blown away by the hanji. I wanted to take a picture but thought I should wait. I take hanji lessons every Thursday. Maedeup lessons will be on Fridays. So I have a craft class every day of the week if the Korean embroidery lady confirms. She wanted to have class in my apartment on Monday's.

Chilbo class this week ran a little late and Rocketman is in Taiwan so I decided to grab a bite at Lotteria, a local hamburger joint. The place was jumping with junior high students and I managed to find a table next to a group of 14-15 year old boys. As I waited for my order, I saw that they were having trouble deciding what to do. Each of them had only 1000WON (about 80 cents US) and after talking for about five to ten minutes, they reluctantly left.

My order came up and as I was eating my cheeseburger, I felt bad for those boys. I had wished that I had offered to pay for their dinner. I finished my dinner and as I left the restaurant, there were those four boys standing by the door. I went over to them and asked if they were hungry. They were surprised to have me talking to them and were embarassed. They told me they were and I told them that I had seen that they didn't have enough money for dinner. I offered to buy them dinner.

One boy said "NO" while they others said "YES." I took out some money and gave it to the boy who said no. I told the boys to please be nice to foreigners. They started yelling and jumping up and down which caused everyone to look at us. They said thank you in English many times and I left, making my way to the bus stop.

I am hoping that when they grown up and become ajosshis, they will remember the time a foreigner bought them dinner and think kindly of us who are not Korean. Of course, Rocketman was not happy. He feels I made myself a target. I hope not. It really felt like the right thing to do.