Chuseok (추석): “Light Up Your Everyday with a Little Funk and Soul!”
By: Lexi Aguila
Last October 7, the MIIS Upper School Student Council lit up our hearts with a fun-filled program to virtually celebrate one of the most anticipated events of every school year– the Chuseok Festival (추석), also known as Korean Thanksgiving. Despite having to commemorate this year’s Chuseok Festival online, the addition of new games and segments made the entire experience as laugh-worthy and joyful as possible. Hosted by Lexi Aguila and Jiyu Yun, the program started off with Jiyu talking about the origin of Chuseok and how it became such a wonderful opportunity for people to gather together with their families and loved ones to feast on heartwarming Korean food and thank one another for all the blessings they have received throughout the year. Afterwards, the student body was able to watch Kenneth Samson’s Special Cooking Segment where he brought us into his kitchen and taught us how to cook Rabokki (라볶이), a delectable Korean dish consisting of instant ramen noodles (ramyeon, 라면) and Korean spicy rice cakes (tteokbokki, 떡볶이).
For the first game in our virtual Chuseok, the Student Council decided to test everyone’s basic Korean vocabulary by playing everyone’s favorite game– Kahoot! Representatives from each section were tasked to guess the correct English translation of certain Korean words and phrases — as fast and as accurately as they could. Prevailing as our Kahoot champion, Julia Mitra of 12-Iustitia received a perfect score of 10 out of 10. Another exhilarating game that the Student Council prepared was the 5-Second Challenge: Korea Edition! Tag teams of two students per class were given prompts such as “Name 3 Korean tourist attractions” and “Name 3 K-pop groups with numbers in their names”– which they had to fulfill within five seconds only! With a whopping total of one (1) correct answer, Andre Ascalon and Josh Medez of 12-Prudentia emerged victorious.
This year’s Chuseok batch performances were shown in the form of videos! Our freshmen brought their ‘A’ game by showing off their groove to songs by widely-known K-Pop bands such as “Love Shot” by EXO and “Forever Young” by BLACKPINK. As for our sophomores, they exhibited not only their music smarts, but also their picture smarts by performing ITZY’s “Not Shy” and displaying their very own Minecraft builds of different Korean landmarks! They even portrayed a scene from Crash Landing On You, a K-drama in their own Minecraft world. Next up, the juniors prepared a cute and creative rendition of TWICE’s “What is Love.” Lastly, the seniors, or as they call themselves– The Ken-Pops– presented a choreographic medley composed of 2009–2020 K-Pop hits, some of which being “NOBODY” by Wonder Girls, “I’m so sick” by Apink, and “Fear” by SEVENTEEN.
Ending the event with a bang, the Student Council had a surprise performance of “Dynamite” by BTS, reminding the student body to light up their everyday “with a little funk and soul”, and to simply take small opportunities here and there to thank their loved ones for all the light they bring them in these dark and daunting times. This was definitely a fitting finale for this time of great change when we choose to be grateful for the gift of community.