This is a companion post to James McCann’s “A Canadian Werewolf in Korea.” I thought I would add my two cents about our recent whirlwind trip to Korea.
Kids Book Event
Our event at the Korean bookstore was indeed a massive success, but it sure didn’t feel like that at the start! Even though James and I both have a great deal of experience in speaking at schools and stores throughout North America, this presentation was unlike any other. The Korean culture is one in which a great deal of respect and deference is shown to people older than yourself. As such, we found that there was no laughter or reaction during our presentations, even when we really craved it!
That’s why I thought we were a flop until the presentation ended and we were suddenly swarmed by all the attendees. It wasn’t that the audience didn’t enjoy our presentation; it’s just that they were too polite to react while it was in progress!
I have to say we then felt like a pair of kings, with kids and parents lined up out the doorway to get their pictures taken with us—and, of course, their very own autographed copies of our books.
I’d like to give the store a big thanks for hosting us and, in particular, to Joon-Hyoung Park, who helped arrange the visit.
CWC Writing Camp, Yongin, Korea
Speaking of Joon, he is the person who started The Creative Writing Society for Children (CWC) four years ago. CWC is a program in which we help kids write, illustrate, and desktop publish their own books. The program has become a huge success in Vancouver and the other reason for our trip to Korea was to our host our second-ever overseas young authors camp.
The last camp was in summer, so I can tell you that it was quite a bit colder this time! It’s a lucky thing I brought a toque and scarf (I needed them)! It was -12 Celsius when we first arrived. For this Vancouverite, that’s cold!
The intensive six-day CWC camp was attended by nineteen young writers, aged 9-15, and taught by myself and James McCann, with some much needed help delivered by Bo-Hyea Ok, who flew in from Australia. I would call Bo our “wrangler”. It’s hard to teach a large class, and Bo helped both James and I by giving some extra attention to individual students when we could not.
The theme of this writing camp was “adventure,” and our young authors did a wonderful job of crafting exciting tales filled with mysterious plots, brave heroes, diabolical villains, and plenty of riddles and secret codes.
I think the highlight of the week was when James, Bo, and I created a treasure hunt for the students. In this activity, the kids broke into teams and had to chase clues around the campus, much in the spirit of the Indiana Jones and National Treasure movies. I don’t think anyone realized how excited the kids would get during this hunt. Not only did their brains get a real workout as they tried to crack our riddles, codes and mind-benders, but their legs were burning afterwards too (apparently one must run a lot during a treasure hunt, even if one does not know exactly where one is headed to next).
The gang from the CWC camp.
….
