Context, Details, Teaching English

Let me give you some context.

Korea is like a neck and Gyeongsangnam-do is like the necklace, from which three pendants hang. Tongyeong is those diamonds laid on a bed of mother of pearl, which is the sea. The necklace and the neck are emerald mountains speckled with vermillion and amber sapphires: tufts of turning leaves.

You can see chocolate stones jutting from the oyster sand beneath the clear seas. The coves are shallow, but the channels are deep. Ships weave between islets. This land the fantasy writers dreamed to design. I walk through close streets, neon-lit. My eyes are light; now every turn brings something new. Foreign words for foreign concepts, hastily beloved. Shillbe, choding hakkyo, noribong.

Here I'm a celebrity. Here I have three arms. My tongue makes two statements: what I meant, and "aberration". Here I am "handsome teacher", like Quasimodo.

Here people I've never met pay for my food, secretly. I go to pay and the owner says, "Anyo, anyo." No, no. It's paid.

I've had the chance to test my philosophy. And it's strong. I'm happy.

To be specific:
Over the weekend the sixth graders went on a fieldtrip to Seoul. I spent the day coaxing them towards English explanations. They saw parliment, the money museum and science museum (it sounds like New York's Museum of Natural History plus robots), the President's house (named the "Blue House" for its roof), and the largest amusement park in Korea. Their favorite part of the trip? I'll give you one guess.

They adored the 50m tall, 60mph, 77 degree decline on what is perhaps the scariest looking wooden roller coaster I've ever seen. I would not board that thing unless my family and friends' lives depended on it. They liked staying up late and eating snacks and talking and watching TV. Ah, at least some things never change. Not that I mind change, but really, I think we had more fun on bus trips. I asked them what they did on the drive to Seoul. They said, in order of frequency: MP3s! Cellphone Games! Nintendo DS! Sleep! Talk!

WHAT? What happened to SONGS? Summer camp songs!? Not that I can remember any of them. And the Alphabet game? License Plates? Slugbug? Books!? I'm not sure if I was easily entertained or if childhood has been irreversibly dislodged from the human experience. Ah-gup-dah, to say the least. Ahgupdah means disappointed. I'm not going to hazard a guess at the Korean spelling. Ok I am: 아급다

I'm learning Hangul as quick as I can. Today was my day to learn words and promptly forget them, but yesterday went better. I don't have a Hangul course or textbook or anything so I'm picking it up randomly where I can, from fellow teachers, friends, street signs, wherever. I learned ahgupdah from playing Billiards.

Oh right, billiards. You're not going to believe people do this to themselves. In Korea, men, for pure amusement (and possibly for camaraderie) play billiards. I'm not talking about pocket ball, commonly known as "pool" in the States. Billiards has no pockets, though otherwise the table is traditional. I played two different but connected games: 4 ball and 3 cushion. 4 ball is relatively easy: hit you cue ball so that it hits both red balls on the table without hitting the other team's cue ball. Easy easy. Not. Once you've done that maybe 25 times, you're done warming up. Now it's time for 3 cushion. In three cushion there are multiple levels. The first involves hitting your cue ball so that it hits a red ball, hits exactly three cushions and then hits the other red ball. Which is easier than the second level in which you have to hit three cushions and then BOTH red balls.

Oriupdah. Difficult. Said difficulty meant I said ahgupdah all night long. I scored 2 points. My partner scored at least 30. These guys are amazing. They examine the table, muse for two or maybe three seconds, lean over, aim and bam, cue ball hits both reds.

Me? Oh I examine the table. I note that the table is green. I note that red ball #2 is not conveniently placed. I muse for 10 maybe 20 seconds. No timely typhoon or earthquake distracts my companions, so I leave red ball #2 where it is. I lean over, say the rosary and bam, my cue ball hits red ball #1, then gravitates towards wherever red ball #2 isn't -- usually the other cue ball. I stand up, say ahgupdah with some conviction, accept condolences and pretend I have faith I'll figure this game out.

But don't tell anyone.

Teaching English
The second round with the third graders went well. If you keep them distracted and repeating everything you say, they don't have time to form coalitions and impeach you. They absolutely love learning and I absolutely love the way they call me "Mr. Sample".

Back to the 6th graders and today's lesson and my philosophy: When I mentioned the songs we'd sing on bus trips, one of the male students called me the Korean equivalent of "baby", an epithet which incited the other male students to my defense. They insisted I guard my honor and fight the student on the spot. I politely declined and proceeded to explain I'd rather shake his hand and make a friend than punch his lights out and make an enemy. To which one of the nicer students called me "Gandhi". At which point I realized I was breaking Epictetus' maxim of never explaining your philosophy, but rather living it. So I shook the kid's hand and moved on.

Crisis averted.

On a(n even) funnier note: today at lunch some of my 4th graders came to visit me after they finished eating. Their homeroom teacher is one of my friends here so I asked them if he was a good teacher. To which the smartest kid in school (a 4th grader!) replied, "No! He's bad! He's very bad!" She proceeded to explain that the teacher tells them to "Sit down and to shut up," a teaching style she disapproves of. She asked me if I knew her teacher. I said, "Oh yes. He's my friend." She blanched and covered her mouth and said, "Please don't tell him!"

Of course I did. I turned to the table behind me, where he happened to be sitting, and asked him if it could be true. He denied everything. Which was to be expected.

I returned to the prosecutor for more details. She repeated her accusation, so I drove to the root of the issue: I asked if kids stood up in class. She said yes. I asked if students talked a lot in class, if they were very loud. She answered in the affirmative again.

The solution stood plainly before me: "You know," I said, "if all the students sat down and didn't talk, he wouldn't say 'Sit down' or 'Shut up'." Then she sunk me with a truth too obvious to refute: "Yes," she said, "But we're children and children need to run around and talk."

That's what a Whitworth education gets you: swift defeat in a debate with a 10 year old.

More, eventually. Don't wait up nights.
Well, it's bedtime here, 7:00 in Seattle, 10:00 in New York and 16:00 in Paris and you're all going about your days. I hope they're grand. Miss you my loves, but not enough to call or come home. Be in touch. I'll be too.

3rd Graders, Yoga

Today I had five classes of third graders. How to put this nicely... today I encountered 150 reasons for abstinence. The governments of the world should investigate compulsory shifts teaching third graders as a win-win approach to birth control. What monsters! What savages! What sycophants! What cretins!

I pretty much lost my voice. I spent almost an entire class trying to explicate increasingly lucidly my intended denotation of the word "quiet". When I was 9, grown-ups constantly told me to respect my elders. I figured when I became an elder kids would have to respect me. Now I realize those adults were on a power trip and I let myself be conned. And now I realize if I want respect, I'm going to have to wring it from the students' small bony... grades.

But I survived. I made it to the afternoon. Only to learn tomorrow I teach my normal four classes of 6th graders (they're not so bad -- at least they're semi-sentient!) and then I also get to teach an English class for teachers. I'll be up to 27 lessons a week at that point. Whoa.

Tomorrow I've decided to cop out at the first English for Teachers' class and spend 40-50 minutes focusing on introductions and question and answer sessions. It'll be the 23rd time I've formally introduced myself to a class of Korean students. You won't believe me, I'm sure, but I mean this with my whole heart, if you want to know the truth: I'm sick of talking about myself.

That's why I'm blogging. Because this isn't talking about... ahem... myself... oh look at the cute ironies flitting about the room! Darling aren't they.

Teaching really isn't that bad. I don't mind it. Relatively at least. Relative to what, you ask? Relative to my newest recreation. Yoga.

Yoga was created by Buddhists to hammer home the point that life is suffering. However, many people misinterpreted the message and realized life is gloriously pleasurable, compared to death by sustained awkward pose. And so the cycle continues. People complain, decide to improve their lives, begin yoga and run smack into the epiphany that life is easy -- Yoga is suffering.

Ok get up. Stand with your feet together. Put your right hand on the ground, in line with your feet. Your upper body should form a perpendicular line, a beam across the two posts of your feet and hand. Now lift your left foot off the ground till it is parallel and in line with your body. Lift your left hand to the ceiling; extend as far as you can. You should look like you're half way through a cartwheel. Well done. Now just hold that position for three minutes. That's it! Super easy. Super fun. Feels super good. Straight out of Guantanamo.

No really. As I walk to Yoga I really feel like an insane prisoner of war. Like a detainee with a cell phone. "Hello? Hey Mr. Cheney. Oh, you and Rummy want to waterboard me? Great! I'll be right over."

I'm not trying to trivialize the plight of the accused (and yet-to-be-accused) in various prisons around the world. They can't escape. I can. So why do I keep making that walk of pain? American culture taught me No Pain No Gain. So I figure, a lot of pain, a lot of gain. Which of course is denying the antecedent but hey, ho, here I go!