I went to lunch with my hanji teacher and her kids. When I met her kids, her daughter had just returned from living a year in Canada and her English was excellent. Hreraughter is 18 and her son is 17 and he wants to be chef. He loves American food so I brought him an American cookbook with lots of pictures. Her daughter's English name is Hannah and since I already had a Korean Hannah we called her Little Hannah.
She was struggling with her schoolwork load. She told me she leaves for school by 7 am every morning. School ends at 5 pm but she stays every day until 10 pm for extra studying and to complete homework then it's off to the hagwon (private school) from 10 pm - 12 am. She repeats this six days a week. If she has a day off, her mother schedules extra schooling. You could see how tired this poor girl was.
I felt so bad for her. I really don't know how she stands the pressure. I'm not a big fan of the Tiger Mom because of these extremes. While living in Korea this last time, we heard on the news of a 10 year old boy that jumped to his death because he gotten a poor grade on a paper. I'm also not a big fan of our U.S. school system either and I certainly don't have the answers.
We had a wonderful lunch where the dishes kept coming and coming. Sometimes I look at all the banchan (Korean sidedishes) and I feel it's too pretty to eat.
I had visited her hanji shop earlier in the day to meet her and my hanji friend and to pick up the hanji forms I had ordered. I had brought presents for my hanji teacher, her children and my hanji friend. My hanji teacher was so touched she started pulling a collection of hanji paper for me. As she was doing this I walked around and took pictures of the new hanji things that had been created in the year since I had left.
Oh, this was just too beautiful. The next time we live in Korea (I'm dreaming and hoping) I am definitely going to make one of these.
A close up of the top.
My hanji teacher created this with two tissue forms and then created the doors. I was in love.
Oh, I really loved this one!
Here they are picking out paper for me. The box was so big and heavy with hanji forms I couldn't carry it so she delivered it that night to the Dormy for me. Rocketman was not pleased to see all the forms and especially when it took up half of two suitcases.
She also gave me this beautiful vest.
My hanji friend gave me this box that she made.
I was so shocked when my hanji teacher gave this to me. It was so wonderful of her.
All my hanji forms made it home but the luggage was pretty heavy.
She rolled all the hanji paper into a tube and covered it with newspaper and lots of tape. It fit into my suitcase perfectly and made it home safe and sound.
Here some photos of that wonderful hanji paper.
I think these were my favorites.
I haven't done much hanji since we moved back but I've got the itch and plenty of forms and paper.
A few more pictures from the hanji shop. I'm not sure why they ended up here and not with the rest.
One of the things I had brought my hanji teacher was about six small punches with designs like a heart, dragonfly, and butterfly. I wasn't sure how well they would be received. She could be old school where everything needs to be cut out by hand or she could think they are really cool. I should have known that it would be the second. She loved them. So much so that little Hannah told me that she kept her and her brother up for hours punching out tons of hearts and dragonflies to give to me. I have the little bags somewhere but I can't find them right now. She really, really loved those punches.
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