Sunday, November 15, 2015

Thanksgiving Football

I didn't know this before leaving home this morning, but today is Korean Thanksgiving. Not Chuseok, which is a traditional Korean holiday, but the day in which churches across Korea give thanks to God for the harvest.

At my church we ate lots and lots of fruit, and then afterwards, my pastor asked me if I liked football, by which he meant soccer, and a bunch of us went to the Geum Gang and faced off against another church's soccer team. I didn't play but cheered heartily when we won at 4-0. (A fifth goal was scored but it was after the game ended.) It was a lot of fun.

Afterwards we all went back to church again, and ate yet more fruit - apples, pears, persimmons, pineapples, melons, bananas, and pomegranates were all included. Then we ate spicy ramen together and talked.

I asked if Koreans always play "football" on Thanksgiving, since Americans often do (play football football, I mean, not soccer). This was, apparently, a one-time event requested by the music teacher who comes to our church. (He goes to the other church but visits ours on Sunday afternoons to give lessons to our kids so they can play on the worship team.) We agreed that it would be fun to do this regularly, but after today's game we aren't sure how the other team would feel about it...