Jeonju Cultural Experience

This Saturday I experienced some Korean cultural. I went to a planned event just for foreigners. We experienced all the main aspects of Korean culture. The first thing we did was learn to use the traditional Korean drums the Janggoo. It was very difficult but fun. You know I don't have any rhythm so that is what made it difficult.


There were about 30 or 35 foreign teachers there. I have not seen any or met any of them since I have been here. I think they are hiding! I knew 5 of the 30 or 35 teachers because we all came from the same school or my church. It was funny because we all pretty much stuck in our small groups from our schools. I think Korea is rubbing off on us. Koreans don't mix with people they don't know unless someone they do know introduces them. It is an interesting part of the culture.

Next we experienced a tea ceremony. It seems that everything is steeped in their religion here. The instructor told us that we would experience the tea with all 5 senses.


We would use our ears to hear the water pouring, our eyes to see the color of the tea, we would touch the warmth of the pottery, and smell as well as taste the tea! We were suppose to put away our cameras because we would interrupt the ceremony, we didn't listen. I think it was mainly because we didn't believe in the spiritualism of the tea ceremony or it could be we were all foreigners wantign pictures to post on our blogs! The lady even told us that we couldn't wash the cups or pot with soap because it was alive and we would hurt it.

Me and my cup of green tea! I am not a huge fan of green tea but the ceremony was fun.

We each got a chance to be the host. It is actually very difficult. Yo have to remember a certain order to do everything. Here are the steps in brief.

1. Pour water from a tea pot into the white bowl with the spot

2. Pour the water from the bowl into each cup. You start with your cup first and then go counterclockwise warming each cup. You start with your cup first because it will get colder faster.

3. Then you place tea into the pot. You then pour more water from the tea kettle into the white tea pot.

4. While the tea is steeping you pour out the water from the tea cups into the grey bowl. Starting with your cup first to keep the others as warm as long as possible.

5. Then you pour a small amount of tea into you cup to check the color. If the color is okay then you start pouring a small amount into each cup.

6. After that you pass each person a cup starting with the oldest to the youngest. This process begins the next time you want have another cup of tea.

I liked the ceremony but I prefer to boil some water and throw a bag of Lipton in a cup. If I am feeling a little wild I use Celestial Seasonings Nutcracker Sweet Holiday Tea!

We were also able to take part in a traditional wedding. I did not volunteer but it was fun to watch.

The final thing we did was make the famous traditional food for the town I live in. It is called Jeonju Biminbop.

This is what the final product turned out like. We had our own "Jamie Oliver" pictured above.

Not sure if you noticed the raw egg in the picture up top but Claudine and I could not handle the raw egg that was "suppose" to cook with the hot rice. We fried our eggs and made our own version of the famous Jeonju Biminbop.