those who do not come to the bazaar tomorrow

...will of course be shot on sight. You're lucky, most of you, that I don't know what you look like.

Seriously, though: for those interested in attending the bazaar, here's the relevant info (many thanks to the people who've written in privately):

When: Thursday, February 2, 10AM to 1PM
Where: Smoo Social Education Building, 1st floor
[NB: that building is called the Sa-hwae Gyo-yook Gwan in Korean)
What: Bazaar

Explanation: We've been teaching Intensive English Conversation since the beginning of January, and the Smoo Bazaar is a longstanding part of that course. The bazaar's purpose is to give students a chance to interact with each other, with teachers, and with foreign guests in English. (To be honest, many of them will end up speaking Korean.)

This past summer, our bazaar was a smallish event. This one promises to be a bit bigger: students from our Freshman English classes are required to come. While we probably had only about 30-50 attendees last time, we may have up to 200 this time around (though perhaps not all there simultaneously).

Each English teacher is the leader of a "homeroom," and it's with these students that we've been planning our (bizarre) bazaar activities. If you come to the bazaar, you can expect to see the following:

*food and drink (our group is selling homemade bbop-gi, which is a cousin of Korean yeot)
*used item sales (prices negotiable-- negotiate in English to make our students sweat)
*a silent auction (our group will be selling some of my artwork, plus a couple trinkets)
*a mini-disco and mini-casino
*a taekwondo demonstration (and a nunchaku mini-demonstration... I've learned that nunchaku are called ssang-jeol-bong in Korean)

The latter two events-- the mini-disco and the TKD-- are bound to be crowd-pleasers. When I was making brush art last year, we had a few people gather around, but I won't be drawing any huge crowds.

Feel free to slither, crawl, or brachiate on by. We might have a chance to talk. Just don't mention my blog. If you're not sure what "Smoo" means, you might want to email me.

By the way-- the mini-disco is a hilarious concept, and it'd be well worth your while to go dance in it. It's basically a boxed-in area, about the size of two or three portable toilets, that has a black light and a computer with largish bass-resonance speaker. 70s and 80s tunes will be playing there. I think the deal is that you have to pay a small fee (perhaps 500 won) to dance in there for five minutes.

All props to A and Z, the two teachers who've put the most work into making this bazaar happen. A, our resident Aussie, thought up the mini-disco and mini-casino. (I think he might also be running a goofy fortune-telling booth.) Z, one of our two resident Brits, trains with one of the two TKD teams to be appearing at the bazaar, and will be doing the nunchaku demo. She's also the one who's worked hardest to advertise the event off campus. A and Z both deserve Teacher of the Year awards for their efforts.

Later this evening, I'll display some samples of the works that'll be auctioned off tomorrow. Starting bids will probably be about W1000 per piece; bid intervals will be W500. I may close the auction at 1PM or earlier, or I may stagger the auction so that certain pieces are available only at certain times. If you have suggestions on how I might best run the auction, now's the time to submit 'em.


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