Green won’t be the only color flying through the halls of High School South on Thursday, March 17. That’s also the day for the colorful Korean Festival being organized by students at North and South and being held in Commons One and the theater of High School South from 6 to 8:30 p.m.##M:[more]##
The event, which will feature the traditional Korean fan dance and marching dance, along with a Korean play and Korean food, is being organized by faculty advisor Heekyong Janice Chai. A resident of Plainsboro, Chai has taught in the district for 10 years. She was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea, and moved to the United States in 1986 after meeting and marrying her husband in Korea. “My husband had lived in the United States since he was eight years old,” she says. “So I knew that I would be living my life here.”
Chai earned her bachelors and masters degrees in education from the College of New Jersey. She and her husband, who works as an accountant, have two daughters. One attends Rutgers and the youngest is in the sixth grade at Community Middle School.
In addition to her teaching duties in WW-P, — where she is a Korean bilingual teacher traveling to High School South, Community Middle, and Millstone River School — Chai is also a volunteer Sunday School teacher at the Princeton Korean Presbyterian Church. She has recently started taking classes at the Princeton Seminary. “I am not studying to become a pastor,” she says. “I just want to be a better Sunday School teacher.”
This will be the sixth Korean Festival and Chai and her students have been preparing for it since last May. But she is philosophical about the additional hours it adds to her already busy schedule. “People ask me why do you work so hard,” she says. “It is really a big commitment and takes so much effort. But helping the kids achieve something that is so important is worth it. Seeing their happy faces makes me happy.”
Korean Festival, High School South, 346 Clarksville Road, 609-716-5000, ext. 5050. E-mail: koreanfestival@hotmail.com. Dinner, show, and health clinic. Performances include the traditional fan dance, marching dance, drum dance, modern dances, Tai-Kwon Do, fashion show, vocal performances, and a Korean play. $10.
Free health clinic sponsored by Princeton HealthCare System will be from 4 to 7 p.m. Dinner is from 6 to 7 p.m. in Commons One. The theater opens at 7 p.m.
