A Day for the Kids.

Today did not start off on a good foot.  Today, in fact, despite the fact that there was no school, started off on an especially bad foot.  I have not been feeling well and it all seemed to pounce on me at once, leaving me exhausted and especially irritable.  However, I decided to brave the outdoors and make my way to the dining hall for a nice meal.  And as it turns out, I was especially glad that I did.  Being here and learning about the perfectionist culture in my class really always leaves me wondering if people truly love their children in Korea.  Secretly, I have always known that they must.. But all of the pressure placed on them makes it difficult to understand how that love is shown.  Today is Children's Day in Korea, a national holiday and a "red day" meaning no school or work.  And boy were the kids out and about.  Children were jam packed everywhere as I made my way down to the minimart.  A little girl wearing many elbow and knee pads, happily glided about on her new pink skates, still with the tags attached and a beaming mom carefully held her hand the entire time.  A little boy ran a little race with his dad, who eventually caught him and much to the boys delight, tossed him into the air and covered him in kisses.  Kids throwing balls, and jumping rope, and eating popsicles, all bearing a wonderful look of contentment, like today, the whole world had been handed to them.  Beautiful, wonderful, absolutely perfect parent/child love was everywhere.  And beautiful it was.  Watching that little girl made me think back to my own mom and the pair of skates I received on my seventh birthday.  My mom was never one to skate, but she took me to the rink and held my hand in much the same way.  I remember how proud I was to have my very own purple wheeled skates and to have my mom there with me.  How big and grown up and safe I felt.  As I watched these kids and parents run around, I could have been anywhere in the world.  And as I stood there, in a land very far from home, I cried just a little bit, thinking for the first time that people really were the same everywhere you went.  What a beautiful, beautiful world we live in.