English Pop Song Contest and Back in Korea

I finally made it back to Korea safe and sound on Sunday from my three week adventure through Southeast Asia. I had an amazing trip full of great stories and experiences with even more fantastic people. Look for pictures and posts in the near future. But before you see any of the exotic travel stuff I thought I should post these long overdue English pop song videos.

Back in December my school held an English Pop Song Contest. Each homeroom had to choose an English Song to memorize and choreograph a dance to it. The kids practiced their songs and dances for hours upon hours and you could tell how hard they worked by the dance synchronization.

I was also asked to be the MC for the contest, in front of the entire school, with the president of the 3rd grade class. It was a really fun experience, even though no one understood a word I said.

Here are some of the best performances from the Contest. The first three videos are the winners from each grade. I am so proud of my students, they did such a great job! I have a bunch of other videos from the contest that I will leak with future KPOP fridays.... ENJOY!

1st Grade Winners: Lemon Tree

Lemon Tree from Chris Bailey on Vimeo.

2nd Grade Winners: It's All About You

It's All About You from Chris Bailey on Vimeo.

3rd Grade Winners: Seasons of Love

Seasons Of Love from Chris Bailey on Vimeo.

Doggy Bags and Preview of English Pop Song Contest

After living in a different country for a couple of months, the cultural differences start to fade. You get used to bowing and taking things with two hands, forgetting it was foreign to you at one point in your life. Today a cultural difference stuck out to me, one that I thought I should share.

When you want to take food home from a restaurant or cafeteria, they normally just give you a box to put your left overs in and a paper bag to put the box in and then you are on your way. But in Korea they just give you a plastic bag.

For example, we had red bean soup for lunch today at school. This is a special traditional Korean soup, eaten during the Lunar New Year to ensure there are no ghosts in your life during the next year.

Since it is an important meal, my co-teacher gave me a left over bag of it to eat again for dinner. This is how all take out/doggy bags looks in Korea.
For some reason it always makes the meals less appealing.

Moving on.... I wanted to give you a little preview for what is coming my way tomorrow. My middle school is having an English Pop Song Contest tomorrow afternoon. All of the homerooms (30 of them) chose an English song to sing and dance to. Yesterday was the first round. I was a judge for the 3rd grade classes. Only 3 homerooms from each grade could move onto the final round, which is being held tomorrow (Christmas Eve).

The homerooms were amazing, so enthusiastic and happy to be singing and dancing. They had been practicing for weeks in order to get the moves and harmonies right. I was so impressed. However, I made a major mistake and forgot my camera at my desk for most of the first round, missing taping a rendition of "Baby" by Justin Beiber and "As Long As You Love Me" NYSNC. I ended up getting two performances on camera "Honey Honey" and "Seasons of Love." Check out the short videos below to get a little preview of the show to come.

"Honey Honey"

"Seasons of Love"

PS: at the beginning of this video the head student in the class calls attention and then tells everyone to bow. This is what all the students do at the beginning and end of each period at school.

More to come next week on the English Pop Song Contest. PS: I am the MC for the actual contest (in front of then entire school). Should be interesting!