Korean Service for Foreigners (KSF) welcomed SIS teachers and faculty members on Feb. 12 to enjoy a diverse selection of Korean rice cakes (tteok) in the spirit of the Lunar New Year. The event was prepared in the atrium so that faculty and teachers could visit during lunch and activity period.
KSF members displayed posters explaining the taste, history, and origin of each tteok to provide further insight into the food. While enjoying the tteok, visitors could read through the poster or ask the KSF members at the festival for any elaborate information about the menus.
“We decided to prepare many different types of tteoks, including Kkul-tteok, Garae-tteok, Mujigae-tteok, fermented rice cake, and Injeolmi so that the teachers could enjoy the diverse cuisine but also try new Korean food,” Megan Lee (9), KSF member, said. “Our main focus was preparing tteoks that SIS teachers are probably unfamiliar with but also not so eccentric that teachers do not want to try.”
This was the first time that KSF held a tteok festival to celebrate the Lunar New Year. Expanding from their annual food festival, which is held during Chuseok, KSF developed their club events to introduce another aspect of Korean culture to the teachers.
One special addition exclusive to the tteok festival were interactive competitions in which teachers competed with one another for their chopstick skills where teachers could compete with one another in their chopstick skills. The Korean traditional chopstick game, where two people compete to move more beans from one plate to another using only chopsticks, was held during the tteok festival.
“I thought the chopsticks competition was really fun—it was cool to see teachers competing in it,” Danella Donado, a teacher visiting the tteok festival, said. “It was my first time trying the black sesame tteok and I really enjoyed it.”
Because tteok is a food foreigners are not exposed to as much, this event was an effective medium to introduce new Korean cuisine. Furthermore, opening up the opportunity for SIS faculty and teachers to learn new foods like tteok can be a meaningful step towards helping them learn and experience Korean life.
