International Day

Korea

China and a little Papua New Guinea behind him!

Every year, the Shen Yang International School celebrates International Day.  Students, teachers and parents dress up in national or international dress.  There is a flag ceremony which is really quite moving.  Different students walk in carrying their country or another countries flag.  This year, a Korean boy in Mexican dress carried in the Mexican flag.  Elisabeth carried in the South African flag, while dressed in a Korean hanbok. After the ceremony, the kids are dismissed to eat!  This is one of those times where I am happy not to be a teacher!  There are stations of food from all around the world - all of it prepared by parents.  For example, a Korean mom (who is also my classmate in Chinese class) made taco's for the first time in her life.  The high school part of the food was the Middle East or Africa so Elisabeth made flatbread.  After the ceremony, the kids were able to go to different presentations on different countries.  We flagged down a van that happened to be leaving the school and were able to go home.  That is one more thing I love about China-people really are willing to help out!  The school is far  out of the city and we took a bus there.  If we had waited for a bus back, it would have been two and a half more hours at the school.  So finding someone who was willing to pile 10 more people into his van was really a blessing.

Here are some pictures of the day.  The school is over 80% Korean, so you will see lots of Korean dress!

Primary students lined up.

Elisabeth with her friends.

Deciding what to eat.  There were many choices.

Serving up the food!

Standing up to eat!

Sitting down to eat.

Elisabeth in a Korean Hanbok borrowed from a friend.

Blurry picture of Elisabeth standing by the South African flag.