A Rose By Any Other Name...

Yesterday, Kim Dong-Uk informed me that our last day of school is 3 weeks away. While I couldn't be more thrilled, I am starting to get sentimental. I'm actually going to really miss these kids.

As I looked around my classrooms today I saw so many familiar little faces... but very few familiar names!

With 45% of Koreans having the last name of "Kim" "Lee" or "Park", and just about every kid has "Min, Ming, or Yeong" somewhere in their name. So, trying to remember 800 little Kim Yeong-Su, Park Min-Jung, Lee Ming-Na, Kim Min-Ju, Park Yeong-Jin, Park Min-Na, Lee Yeong-Ju, and every other possible combination was clearly impossible from day one.

My elementary school students never made English names of their own and even if they had, with 800 different kids a week, I'd still hardly recognize most of them.

 

There are a select handful of students that stand out, for various reasons, and I took it upon myself to give them nicknames... though, only in my head. Here are a few of my favorites:

Lollipop 1 and 2: See previous post.

CLICK HERE

Pringles: She fed me Pringles and chocolate for an entire hour on the way to our field trip in April. Girl sure knows how to win the teacher's affection!

Jazz Hands: Flamboyant chubby kid who loves to sing and is the only one to ever volunteer to act anything out. I love him.

Sunshine & Kirsten: Sunshine purely because she is one of those kids that lights up your day and Kirsten, for no reason in particular, she reminds me 

of a cousin of mine.

Jesus: Probably one of the top 5 most annoying kids

on the planet. Every time I'm around him all that goes through my head is "Jesus.... kill me now!!!" This kid has the uncanny ability to yell "Teacher teacher teacher teacher" for 40 minutes straight while jumping in his chair, crawling under desks, or running in circles. And he just happens to be the smartest kid I teach. He also lives in my building and recites my address in English every time I pass by him... weirdo.

Pixie: She's half the weight and a head shorter than

 every other student her age, so is her little sister. She has the squeakiest little voice and she is absolutely beautiful.  She looks like she belongs in a fairy tale. 

Shit for brains: This name has nothing to do with his intelligence but rather this incident: 

CLICK HERE

Ms. President: Every kid in her class had their picture on the wall and under it was written what they want to be when they grow up. All the girls said "I want to be a Pop-star or mother." All the boys said, "I want to be a Pop-star or Soccer player"... except for her. She said, "I WILL be President."

We Represent...

So, there are two little boys in one of my fourth grade classes that I've affectionately nicknamed, "the lollipop guild" though no real resemblance to the Wizard of Oz characters.

They get their nickname from their overall appearance. They look like two little lollipops. Enormous heads, plus a bushel of thick back hair, on little bodies that are no more than 1/2 the width of those domes of theirs. And they are both about a foot shorter than any other student in class.

If that was it I would just call them lollipops. But they come as a team, hence the guild. They are attached at the hip. Always together. Actually, a little too together. Always sitting on each others laps, giving each other back rubs, they sit next to each other and usually have their arms around each other as they work, and sometimes they are practically dry humping each other.

Seeing these two boys interact each week has made me aware of and intensely frustrated by part of my American heritage and culture that apparently has been ingrained into my psyche:

I immediately think these boys are gay.

But, they don't have "gay" here in Korea.

I remember the Iranian president, Ahmadinejad, once saying they don't have gay people in Iran. I remember thinking, "what a jackass". Well Korea is also one of those "there are no gay people here" countries. At first I was immensely annoyed by the blatant disregard and omittance of gay individuals here. Though, now, my feelings toward their head-in-the-sand approach to homosexuality has changed somewhat.

When I was teaching at an all boys middle school I very quickly noticed, on the very first day, that the boys were incredibly affectionate with each other. Though, they were also constantly punching, kicking, tackling each other, I'd also see them resting their heads on a friends shoulder if they were tired, arms wrapped around each other to brace themselves on the bus, and rubbing a friends shoulders after judo class. It didn't take long to realize that even though this "no gays in Korea" mentality has a plethora of negative consequences, there was one very good outcome: No homophobia. None.

In America, we make concrete gender lines from birth. Actually, we make them pre-natal. You are born as a pink or a blue. Little boys wear blue clothes and play with trucks and guns. If a boy puts on something pink, or god forbid, picks up a doll, he is immediately stamped as "gay". Fathers try their damnedest to prevent anyone from thinking their boy might grow up to be gay and will try to make them Über masculine. "Boys don't cry" "don't be a sissy" "Shake it off" etc is pummeled into little boy brains.  Toddlers that can barely string together a cohesive sentence know what is culturally acceptable based on their gender. Go to a 3 year-old's birthday party and give out pink and blue party favors, if the only favor left is a pink one, do you think that little boy isn't going to break down in tears???

I'm about as for gay rights as they come. I don't care what your sexuality is and honestly I don't want to hear about your sex life no matter what your preference, whether you're gay, straight, bi, transsexual, a-sexual, or into extra-terrestrials. I don't care.

Now that I've been here 9 months I think back to when I got here and how I thought Korea really needed to reevaluate it's attitude towards homosexuality. Now I'm starting to think that it's me, and my entire American culture, who needs to reevaluate the thinking process behind what is actually normal affectionate human interaction...  though, seriously kid, stop dry humping your friend's leg!

I Feel Like Shit Too, Kid!

Yesterday, it was time for my after school class and in walks my most frustrating student. He was early.

He's really not a bad kid (some of them really are) he's just legitimately hyperactive. His mind and his body are all over the place. (For the first 15 min of class he stabbed 3 rocks with scissors. Though, he gave me the rocks as a gift after class.)

This kid just has a fire in his eyes, you can see that he's actually a pretty good student, if you can just reel him in... which is easier said than done when you don't speak his language. He and I have come a long way lately. We are finally used to each other and I'm starting to see a lot of progress... anyway...

He walks in and instead of immediately muttering obscenities at him (no need to do it under my breath here, he can't understand me) I instead decide to greet him.

Brit: "Hello, how are you?"
Kid: ...???...   (blank stare, I swear I can hear crickets)
Brit: (I try again. 37 weeks of the same thing... he should know this by now) "How... are... you? Happy? (I point to my big cheesy grin) Sad? (now I pretend to cry) Angry?" (I start growling at him and shaking my head)
Kid: (he starts stomping and flailing his arms while growling and shaking his head wildly)
Brit: "You're angry?"
Kid: (Jumps up and down nodding)
Brit: "Why?"
Kid: (Wraps his arms around his stomach and bends over moaning)
Brit: "You are sick?" (Makes sense, everyone is out with some flu or cold)
Kid: (Again jumps up and down while nodding)
Brit: "Oh, that's too bad. (a vocabulary phrase he should know) You have a stomach ache? "  ( I point to my stomach)
Kid: "No, teacher...." he actually says and takes the marker out of my hand and starts to draw on the marker board.

I'm intrigued and stand there while he draws his ailment on the board only to burst out into laughter when I realize he drew a big pile of crap!!!

Brit: (still laughing) "Oh, no!"
Kid: (laughing while holding his stomach and moaning in agony) "Oooh no, teacher...."

We both stood there laughing while the rest of the class showed up. He was actually really good in class... once he stopped stabbing those rocks.