I'd like to say that I'm writing from the depths of the week, but the week hasn't been that deep. It's thursday. Yesterday was Tuesday. The day before that was Sunday when I was tired and hungover from a night with more night than sleep.

So, it's gone by quickly with minimal kid-induced depression. And I've got the joy of commuting on a bright yellow dirtbike. I'm not yet at any stage of cutting through traffic, living up to my self-given Korean name--권칼로--I'm more at the stage of being cut off by people I'm cursing at beneath my helmut, trying to spend as little time as possible trying to understand how they can be that stupid and still operate a steering wheel. The road full of the other crackjobs deserves my attention.

Fuck You?

Yesterday a 12 year-old student said fuck you to me.

He's one of my better kids. He pays attention some times, seems to enjoy learning if not studying, is able to communicate and tries to communicate ideas more complicated than "teacher, me homework no." He comes in to the teacher's prep room to ask me questions or sometimes simply to hound. Lately he's been taking things such as my bag and running away in a joking manner and only returning it after I give fake chase. Or pretending to punch me and giggling. Yesterday he went one step further.

He said it in a joking manner, not meaning any harm. And had it been just the two of us, I wouldn't have really cared. Possibly I would have told him that that expletive--my very favorite--in that form wasn't a really good joke. Maybe I would have illustrated far more colorful ways to use it, ways in which it beautifully and emphatically modifies objects not directly second person. But not likely. I can't bring myself to teach the kids that type of English until they have fully mastered the basic, intermediate, and some of the advanced stuff. But he did it in front of a class that I'm finding increasingly difficult to keep hold of. So I brought him outside to the counter teacher, told her what he said and calmly walked back into the room.

The other students were in an uproar. They all knew what it meant, generally, and were curious what was happening to him outside. I tried to convey that in certain situations, saying "fuck you" to a person can be a serious action--that it isn't a joke they should be comfortable with. I tried telling them it was akin to picking a fight. They just laughed, and acted out fights between each other. I tried telling them that in some places of the US, picking a fight with the wrong person could mean getting shot immediately--angry guy with gun--or getting shot later in some terrible massacre--Dylan Kliebold. They thought this equally funny and unlikely, joking with guns fashioned from pens and pencils.

The student, having received some weak punishment--he was still smiling--came back into the classroom and apoligized at the same time I was realising my stupid mistake of trying to reason with these children. The class was a wash; I entertained fanciful questions about what would happen if the student killed some important person then killed themselves.

Duh. You're dead.

But tell me, my myriad readers, was I wrong in theory or practice? I think it was only in practice, and here's why:

One--I was speaking in English, a language they don't speak competently. Possibly to a competent speaker of English I would have been more persuasive.
Two--They are children, though more importantly children from a very safe, and from what I've seen, non-violent country. They have lived short, sheltered lives, shielded from most mention of harm by their parents. Though generally relegated to an inferior social position, woman here can walk just about any street without fear of rape or assault. There has to exist in some larger seedier city an area that the general public avoids, but I haven't heard about it. The one area of Busan that I was told to avoid after dark I found tame. I think in most places in the US, due to the media and recent spur of violent school crimes, kids of the same age would think death, getting shot or knifed, and saying "fuck you" with a loose tongue would be a more serious act.
Three--I simply went about it in the wrong way. My students think everything I say as a joke is serious, and what I try to explain honestly is dreadfully funny. Hence, I'm 62 and killing people is fun.

The incident got me thinking about how different a place can be. What is considered dangerous here--swimming in a river--is something many others do without thinking. What is considered desperate and despicable is just unthinkable in some circumstances, the stuff of only movies. In a way it's commendable for parents here to keep their children from such information, as it prepares them to enter the sheltered society at large. But should they be so sheltered from such news that such news 10-15 years later becomes unbelievable, something they would only find in a video game or movie? Granted that 10-20% of Koreans travel abroad and such gruesome news from Africa, South America or the US is irrelevant to most Koreans, what part would they play in the world community if all things gruesome outside their borders were dismissed as fiction or exagerated?

I love Fridays. It's an easier day for a few reasons. I generally give tests--moderately quiet day of grading and studying whats in my notebooks during class while the kids are busy bouncing up and down in their chairs, whining "teacher, hard"--or we play games. I prefer the games, though usually it deteriorates past anything you could call educational in a hurry. This Friday I had to jump from one game back into the book--Boring--when half the class was trying to play the game and the other half was either wrestling in the back and throwing chairs around or stealing the game magnets to use to their own ends.

Perhaps the most important reason that Friday is easier is simply that it's Friday, a day the evokes a good mood no matter what the kids are doing. The day is akin to the start of an anticipated meal, or strapping yourself into a roller coaster for the first time after wading through a ridiculously long line--it's the imagination's inflation of what is possible that makes it so pleasing.

After my classes were finished Mr. Kim, the Korean teachers and I went out for dinner. Afterwards, Mr. Kim had to go back to the school for the last class; Ginny, Balgun and I went for a drink at a new bar in the neighborhood: the Beer Gallery.

For a gallery the beers were not so numerous, but then this is Korea, the land of heavily-taxed imports providing beer consumers with a ubiquitously finite selection. The surprising thing was that after only two and a half beers, I was coaxed into visiting the norae bang downstairs. I'm not generally a fan of norae bangs (literally "song room" in Korean) because I don't really like to sing around other people unless I'm drunk and unguarded. I'm self-conscious about my terrible voice and envious of those who can actually carry a tune. It was a new norae bang, brilliant red walls, black and white checkerboard-tiled floor, and the establishment's name written in gold italicized script on the wall. The beautiful thing about norae bangs is that they are private rooms, where only those in your party are subjected to what you choose to sing, unlike karaoke in the US where one singer serenades the entire bar, for good or evil. I sang great songs like "We Didn't Start the Fire" and "Sweet Child O'Mine" and "99 Red Balloons." I even tried to rock out "U can't touch this" and failed miserably. After two hours of sweetly serenading the not-so-soundproof walls, Balgun gave me a ride close to downtown where I met up with Traci for the beer that would later provide me with a headache. I didn't mean to stay out till 5:30a, but it happens sometimes.

Why not?

I went and did it. After weeks of saying I should start one, maybe tomorow, maybe tonight, I started this. It seems like the thing to do, and those of you who know me know I always do the thing to do. Why not? I've got something to say. Or at least something to describe, which in itself is some thing to say; and sometimes I like to say things, as we all do. This blog has, just now, given me the voice to say things, many things, electronically to many people, at possibly the same time--you might try reading this with a robot's voice--maybe even in the same place. What times we live in!

On with a description: I'm currently teaching English in a hagwon in S. Korea. If you'd like more explanation, please ask a question specific or vague. I like both.

A snapshot of my middle school class: The talkative--in a participatory way--student is quiet because he's looking up vulgar words in Korean that describe crippled or maimed people. A burst of giggling accompanies even more flipping of pages. The student with the best speaking ability is softly punching himself in the face. The student I am asking a question is issuing little but air from his mouth and nearly drooling as he stares at his book. The student next to him is shifting his eyes about hoping I don't call on him next, and the girls in the back are talking about something I don't understand--my Korean's not that strong yet--not really caring if I call on them or not. If I do, one will clarify what at first she didn't hear, then answer the question. The other will wave her hand and say "no teacher," or "pass."

But not all my students are like that. I had students chase me to the elevator this evening to say goodbye, waving phrenetically. I like to think that my classes get them that fired up, but seriously doubt it. On a good day I keep them entertained, keep them talking, hopefully leaving something useful in their heads for later. On a bad day they shut down, stopping any thought. I hear them telling each other that the Korean teacher will explain it in Korean the following day.