Every Monday and Thursday, I meet with about five kids for an after-school class. It's a smaller group, so we practice English in a lot of fun ways. We play a lot of games, do crafts, learn songs and sometimes make food--whatever is interesting to us at the time. Recently, we did a pen pal program with a school in Taiwan, and I interviewed my students to help them flesh out their letters. The timing ended up lining up well with this Field Note, and I wanted to share some of their responses with you, too! Let's meet Chae young, Jun seo and Beom jung.
Chae young and Jun seo usually have traditional Korean breakfasts: rice, soup and some side dishes. But Beom jung usually eats bread and cereal, similar to what I eat in the U.S. At lunchtime in Korea, students usually do not pack their lunches. Korean school lunches tend to change by the day but usually include rice, soup, some meat and some spices.
Dinner usually varies, but can include anything from soups to fried rice to fish and grilled meats. Beom jung really enjoys kimchi jigae, a spicy kimchi stew. On more relaxed nights, an easy meal would be kimbap (seaweed and rice rolls) and ramen noodles.
