Hanji (Korean Papercrafting)

 This week in hanji class I got to bring home the Korean table I had made.  I was blown away with how it turned out.  It took me three classes to complete.  I cut out the design on the top all my myself.  It took forever and I went through a couple of Exacto blades.
Here is a sideview.

I also met my teacher's 16 year old daughter who recently returned from a year and a half visit in Australia.  We had a wonderful conversation and I was shocked that she didn't know really any English before she went to Australia.  Her English was great.  She stayed with a host family and had a pretty hard time there.  It sounds like they weren't very nice to her.  She said that they wanted to feed her only sandwiches all the time and she was hungry a lot.  I must say being an American that is probably what she would get in my country too but I would try to make things that she liked.

We talked a lot of school here now that she is back in Korea.  She had to take a test the next day to determine if she would be held back one year or two.  I was surprised when she told me that studying abroad did not count towards getting her high school diploma and she knew when she went to Australia that she would come back a year behind her peers.  She was worried about making friends.  She said that there were a lot of clicks in school.

She told me what made a student popular was if there were pretty or handsome.  Those kids were always popular. She also said that she would have to cut her hair and she didn't want to.  It was pretty long and she said she would have to get it cut short like a bob for school.  I was shocked at all the rules for dress at her public high school.

All the girls must have the same hair style, the bob.  You can't blow dry your hair (I wonder how they would know?) and you can't dye your hair.  No jewelry at all.  No pierced ears (at least no earrings).  Skirt lengths are carefully monitor too. That's why she likes her long hair right now, everyone thinks she is in her 20's.  Her mom can't wait for her to get her haircut.  She doesn't start school until midAugust and I have a feeling she is going to wait until the last minute.

Last week was her first week at her mom's shop and she was there to meet me and I'm sure practice her English.  You should have seen the place!  I've never been asked sooooo many questions in my life.  Finally an interpreter and instead of my broken Korean and their broken English, we could really communicate with each other their my teacher's daughter.  The main questions were about how long we would be in Korean and what was I going to do with all the Korean crafts I was learning.  It was a blast having in class and I'm going to enjoy her until she goes back to school or decides not to hang out in her mom's shop.