God help 'em

Every Friday morning at 7:30am I teach English for one hour to a group of civil servants. There are 13 of them, and they all work for the Ministry of Education. They range from young, attractive and female, to old, cranky and male. Perhaps the only thing they all have in common is that they don't want to be there. What they want doesn't matter however, because in Korea, what the boss says goes.

Everyone is friendly and pleasant, we all get along, but they don't learn anything. It's difficult when you only have one hour a week with a group that large. I try to make it as fun as I can - mostly by making wild body motions whenever possible - but I can tell they'd rather have the extra hour of sleep.

I brought in a newspaper article for discussion (if you can actually call it that) last time. At some point we steered over to child-rearing habits in Korea. One of the women suddenly announced there were a lot of dinks in Korea. I instinctively began to nod my head in agreement, before realizing what she meant.

I asked if she was referring the acronym, Double Income No Kids. For some reason this perked everyone's interest, and the entire class suddenly began repeating "Dink, dink, dink," in unison, while scribbling frantically in their notebooks.

I banged on the table and appealed for calm. A line has to be drawn somewhere. I pleaded with them to never attempt usage of the word 'dink' while speaking to a white person. They all looked at me like I was crazy, and they're probably right.

********

After class was over, one of my students, Mr. Sang, offered me a ride to the nearest subway station. A mild-mannered gentleman in his mid forties, he'd always been very nice me. He seemed to carry himself with a certain dignity, and I appreciated that.

His English leaves a fair amount to the imagination though. We sat in silence as traffic crawled along, the lack of conversation only mildly uncomfortable. Mr. Sang suddenly asked me, and I quote, "Do you know alecky-colecky?" "Uhh...what?" "Alecky-colecky," he repeated. Mr. Sang, head of a household and a senior bureaucrat in a well-respected position with the Ministry of Education, then put his hands on his head and did an impromptu dance in his seat, all the while whooping and screeching the alecky-colecky song. "Do you know it?" he asked between giggles. "It's long-time ago Korean gag-man joke!"

I sat there staring at him and realized that after two years, I honestly don't know what to do in these situations anymore. When I first came to this country I probably would have thought that hilarious. As the months passed by, chipping away slowly at my good nature, things like that became less funny. And until just recently, watching Mr. Sang that morning would have severely wound me up.

He wasn't finished, however, as he announced he had to go home after he dropped me off. He needed to take his daughter and their dog to the vet. He then leaned over and turned on his car phone. After two rings a young girl answered the phone.

"Yoh-boh-seh-yo?" said the girl, the standard greeting in Korea. "Hello," said Mr. Sang loudly, looking at me and winking. "Now I...come... the...home," he continued, before bursting into high-pitched laughter once again. The only sound coming back from the speaking was one of deafening silence. I prayed, for the future of Korea, that Mr. Sang's daughter found what just occurred as ridiculous as I did.

I seem to be passed the blood-boiling stage now. I mean the Koreans still wind me up like nobody else, but at least now I feel a sense of defeat that numbs the pain. It does keep the blood pressure down in the short-run, although there is still the question of long-term mental health.

Time (and the amount of it I continue to spend here) will only tell.