It's pretty common in modern day Korea for 'Native Teachers' to be seen wandering around nearly every major town or city in the country and, for the most part, Koreans don't necessarily give more than a second glance at the sight of us but for the young ones, school kids, mostly, the excitement and curiosity is still fairly obvious. I spent some time this afternoon hiking around one of the Forest Service parks and as I was walking back to the apartment, I strolled by a park & there were kids all over. Some playing soccer, some playing baseball & some just being kids running all over, finding hours of entertainment from things as simple as sticks and dirt. Anyway, I decided to take a breather on one of the benches for a few minutes and in no time, kids come up to me and start asking me questions, very simple stuff but still impressive that at the age of 6, 7, or 8 years old they are confident enough in their English to approach a total stranger (albeit an English teacher) and start talking to them.
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| I have no idea what you're saying & this sign tells me nothing! |
I was at the store a couple weeks ago and was pricing out the steak at the meat counter & the three young guys working there all came over pretty quickly and one of them was very anxious to speak English (although he was quite a persistent salesman with what appeared to be some sort of animal innards stew at half off - not getting this farm boy, I've eaten enough cow tongue sandwiches & hot dogs to last a lifetime). As it were, I stuck around for maybe 10 minutes talking to these three guys as I know they don't often have the opportunity to practice their English. One of them mentioned he was planning to take his girlfriend to USA, Times Square, like that's an actual address but the more I interact with non-students, it sounds like that's one of the top foreign destinations for Koreans....to simply stand in Times Square & soak it all in, enjoying the lights, sounds & chaos of it all.
As I was getting ready to take off, I noticed there was a little crowd gathered behind me, listening intently to the crazy yellow haired man refusing the guts of animals at half off. I turned, gave a polite hello, a good natured wave & pretended like I had suddenly eyed something across the store I desperately needed and began my meandering towards the escalator. Just as I thought I was home free, the overly confident of the three salesmen mentions he thinks I am a very handsome man. The other two immediately concur and a few of the gathered 'watchers' kinda nod their heads in approval of his wondrous observation. He continues by mentioning that I must have a very beautiful wife....sorry mom, still not yet....and she must feel very lucky. The point of this nonsensical rambling has less to do with how ridiculously good looking I am or am not but more as a comparison to just a few days later, in class one of the girls called me horse face, making the observation that my face was long, like a horse. I guess it makes sense since the genetic physical appearance of native Koreans is more of a rounded, flat face but I thought it was kinda funny, the two observations & how very different but possibly accurate they might actually be.
Not to be outdone, however, the old horse face comment was followed up a scant two days later by a pair of girls at my Tues/Thurs school who felt very strongly that I looked like a girl. That one really blew me away; so I'm a handsome, horse-faced, guy who might have an effeminate, female look to him....well now I just don't know what to think but ya gotta love kids and their unbridled honesty. I did find it quite interesting how I had a class a couple hours before the 'lady looker' fiasco who were so excited that I had a little stubble on my face & my soul patch was getting a little shaggy. There tends to be enough blond scattered in to warrant the students attention and as they so diligently worked into my personal space to touch the stubble and soul patch (although one girl who's new to class started giving my shoulders a massage - I know it's not FL but it made me wonder, am I getting fired today?), they then noticed the hair on my arms protruding from my shirt sleeve (it was surprisingly warm, maybe 50 degrees that day, so I was able to shed a couple layers). In their peculiar & curious little endeavor to solve the mystery of the golden haired, fuzzy faced one, they were nice enough to teach me how to say the word gold - geum (pronounced, keoom).
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| Horse-face? Lady-like? Handsome? I have no idea! |
So, as I always do in these situations, I blame it on genetics, thank my parents and chuckle to myself as nobody understands what I'm saying & proceed to berate me with a ridiculous amount of what I can only assume are statements and questions in Korean, to which I simply shake my head and respond with a questionable but unceremoniously sincere 'Sure, now let's look at page 11.' Surprisingly, most of them get back on task right away & their interest in my hair subsides for another day.
There are a few new videos on my YouTube channel but I've also put a couple at the bottom of the page, too. There is some footage of the city scape, part of a hike I went on recently and a few of my students from a couple different classes. These kids are so funny, it's been such a great time so far. Hard to believe it's almost been three months already!
http://www.youtube.com/user/skibum4cy?feature=mhum
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