Those wacky Koreans do it again. My Good Will Hunting moment. And more!

Sorry I’ve been delinquent this week. It’s been a busy couple of days. Not in an OMG adventure sort of busy-just have had a lot of work to do. Yes, while I do have a lot of fun, I also take my job seriously. I started a couple of extra classes at the start of this month so I’ve had to get oriented with them. I’m also going to have to find a new time to write and post, my Wednesday afternoon writing time which I usually use is now filled with extra classes.

Anyway, I don’t have anything particularly ground breaking to talk about. This weekend I stayed in Saturday night and all of Sunday. Friday night I went out with some students from the academy. (Yes it’s ok, it’s encouraged in fact) Nothing spectacular worth writing about there. Met some more westerners that worked in Nowon, which is nice. Tomorrow night I’m going out for drinks with some of them, it’s good to be networking. Last night(Tuesday night) I went out with a different set of students. This was a bit more interesting. It was mostly girls from one of Alex’s night classes. They all have a crush on Alex, and they lack the vocabulary to be subtle about it. Most of the nights conversation was “Alex, which one of us do you like the most? Do you like me more than a student?” It was like poor Alex was being interrogated-and he couldn’t even date one of them if he wanted to. It’s in our contract-we’re encouraged to go to dinner with them-but no more. Kind of an odd contract I know.

Having gone out with a majority group of Koreans a couple of times now I can certainly say there’s an odd dynamic to it. From what I understand in their native tongue Korean’s are very timid in speech and do their best to avoid confrontational discussions. This doesn’t apply to their English speaking. I think I’ve figured out that it’s because they lack the vocabulary to dance around subjects, but it’s a bit odd none the less. Last night at dinner the flat out “Do you want to take me home” one student asked Alex was a bit surprising for instance. She even added “I’ll clean your house, cook for you too”. Blunt, but not a bad proposition if I say so myself. They also love giving compliments-and not just the girls fawning over Alex. Just between my time out with students Friday night and Tuesday I think Ive been called: “Most kind” “A generous man” “Handsome” “Funny American” “A kind handsome and generous american man” and my personal favorite “Justin Timberlake”. Koreans seem to spend a great deal of their drinking times complimenting each other, and that applies to us white folk when we go out with them too-except generally there’s three basic compliments they know: kind handsome generous(and apparently Justin Timberlake). Still, it’s kind of fun to constantly be showered with superlatives-if you ever need an ego boost come to Korea.

A couple other funny anecdotes from hanging out with those silly Koreans:

Friday night I was talking to a guy who’s English was actually very good. He was asking me if I had met any Korean women here(they love to talk about relationships and meeting people and stuff-more on this later) I told him no, and that I wasn’t particularly sure how to approach a Korean woman-I meant this more in the sense that it’s hard to tell by looking at someone if they know English. His reply was a bit different, he said “Oh, you just tell her she’s beautiful”. Politely I said “oh that’s a great compliment in America too.” Then, as straight faced and serious as you can possibly imagine he quickly added “Then you ask her if she wants to go make a sexy time”….I nearly fell out of my chair. I told him that, typically, that didn’t work in America when trying to approach a respectable woman, but that perhaps I’d give it a try the next time I was stateside.

The things those Koreans say #2:

Last night we got on the topic of the word shit. The students had heard Alex use it and were like “ha ha you said a cuss word”. Then one woman said bullshit. We said yes, that was poop from a male cow. She said “Yes, like Jordan on the Chicago Bullshit”…again, close, but no. Engrish can be fun!

Another thought on wacky Koreans. I thought Americans were bad about being love crazy. The Koreans are far worse, and they’ll come out and say it. I’ve talked to two people now who have told me “It’s spring time and I’m lonely, Im going to find someone to date”, and one of them was a guy. If that was DeBarr or Phil that told me that I’d ridicule him mercilessly, but to the Koreans it’s normal. They’re very much love crazed. I’m not sure why, but I’m going to do more investigation.

Besides the Koreans I’ve taken a disdainful interest in some of my fellow teachers as well. I know I’m by no means a great teacher-I’ve only been doing this gig for just over a month now-but I generally have a good time with my students. I get along with them, and they’re well behaved. I don’t have any reward and punishment system because I don’t need it. Other teachers here do, my boss has been setting me up with other more experienced teachers so they can give me some advice, and some of it is good, but most of it I chalk up to the department of “what not to do”. They talk about making a kid stand with his nose in the corner, and reward people who behave with stickers, and what to do to kill time in class. I haven’t found a need for any of that yet. They seem to base their entire teaching philosophy on the idea that kids are sneaky evil little brats. It’s much easier I’ve found if you start by assuming they’re fairly reasonable smaller adults. I don’t punish them for crap they don’t need to be punished for-I treat them like I would adults-everything’s based on reason and logic. They get that, I don’t see why people don’t think they do. I could go deeper into this idea, but I won’t bore you. I’ll just add that it’s been a good experiment for me because I’ve always thought that’s how I’d like to raise my children-no “do this because I say so and no other reason” rules, only rules that make sense to them, and for the most part people have told me it would never work. I can see now that it can-perhaps not with a 5 year old, but the 11 and 12 year olds I work with it most certainly does.

I find I’ve been getting a lot of great thinking done over here. There’s some sort of detached clarity in things over here. I’m not sure what that means but I think I’ll be developing it more. Also, tons and tons of reading. Since I’ve gotten over here I’ve read like 2,500 pages, which for me is pretty good in a month. I think that’ll decline some because I have my computer back and it’s much easier to veg out in front of that than choose to read, but I do plan on continuing to read. The reading is improving my writing, although sometimes it makes me seem silly, writing in soliloquy in an IM does seem kind of stupid. Never-the-less I feel in tip top writing shape.

I guess that’s all I’ve got for now. I think I’ve decided my weekly entries may be bad for readership so Im going to try to make it like bi-weekly and a little shorter so everyone checks the site more often, and it doesn’t take an hour to read.

This weekend I think will be another slow weekend, then the weekend after that I get my first paycheck, so I imagine I’ll probably go blow some of that. Then, in late April I think I’m going to try to make my first venture out of the city. It’s too cold right now to do anything adventurous. It’s like 40 degrees right now at 10 o’clock. Plus, it’s the worst time of the year for the yellow dust-which is like pollen on steroids. It’s dust that blows over from the gobi-you can’t see it except as a haze in the sky, but it kills my sinuses. They say it will subside in a few weeks. I sure hope it does.

I’m off for another, another class of screaming 11 year olds wait to learn. Until next time.