9:20 AM Walked to school part of the way with Wooseok! I was tromping along when I saw a familiar bowlcut ahead of me. He had just turned around to give me a little wave, and I walked several yards behind him.
I decided to catch up a little in case he wanted to walk together. But he took a split in the road which left him walking close to the river and me walking on the main road about 10 feet higher, directly across from him. I called down, "Hey why are you walking down there instead of up here?" He smiled and surprised me by walking up the bank to get in step with me.
I linked arms with him and asked him about his Christmas. He didn't get presents, he said (a lot of the kids said their parents didn't get them anything! Goes to show how de-emphasized the family aspect of Christmas is.). I told him that I got perfume and he immediately asked, "누구 한테?" (Who from?) when I said my friend's name he asked "여자?" (Female?). I told him yes, my friend is a girl.
We talked briefly about the fact that it's winter vacation before Wooseok split off to take a side path that is undoubtedly a shortcut to school, or at least a path that keeps you free of punishments from teachers who notice you're late.
It was so sweet! I only held his arm for a minute, because I thought it was the right thing to do, since he needs to know he's valuable and it's something I've done with Jaehyung and something the kids do with each other. He wasn't uncomfortable, but he was smiling shyly and talking like a normal person, which is kind of amazing considering what a wild child he normally is. Everybody's got a precious side to them. The teachers think Wooseok is an ADHD menace and the students think he's a few forks short of a place setting, but he's a kid in need of love and care, too.
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11 AM: Well, I only got to hang out with 1-3, 1-4 B today because only 1st and 2nd periods were taught, so no Byeonghyun and Seongmo for me since I didn't teach 2-1, 2-2 A. *sniffle*
In 1-3, 1-4 B the boys were 300% ready to play monopoly, and we did it in teams: 1. Me and Sangyeop 2. Dongseok 3. Walk-to-School-Mingi 4. Yong and Eunchan. Jaeson was our know-it-all banker who doesn't speak more English than the other boys but who somehow understands more and therefore can translate.
Sangyeop and I quickly fell into a "married couple" bicker-and-compromise relationship because when we rolled the dice, sometimes he wanted to switch towers with another player while I thought it was best to move 5 spaces and take a Chance card, which might get us more money. Then I told him not to buy McDonalds because it was too expensive for us, whereupon he revealed that we could afford it because he had hidden away a $500 bill in his jacket pocket the whole time. The sudden revelation that we were wealthy was glorious. Jaeson started humming the Wedding March at us.
Sangyeop also pulled out two strands of my hair. He's been threatening to do it for forever, and finally the temptation of sitting by me was just too great. I poked his arm like I was angry, but it really reminded me so much of my oldest younger brother and how he used to think pulling out my hair one strand at a time was the best thing ever.
Additionally, I learned that calling Mingi "Min-ki" with a K-sound is totally the wrong way to say his name and it should be "Min-gi" with a G as in "go, gold, gone". The way I had been pronouncing it was either nonsense or something inappropriate because the boys always giggled when I said Mingi's name and they finally told me I was doing it wrong. Le sigh. But Mingi loves me--he knows I didn't mean to mangle his name.
Though that's nothing compared to the kid I think I accidentally called "disabled" as if it was his name. In Korean, calling someone "crazy" or "disabled" is essentially cursing. The boys always told me early on in English that other students were impaired: "Teacher, he crazy! Teacher, he disabled!" And while I thought those comments were unkind, they clearly were ridiculous and untrue, and overall those were really mild bad things to say about a person.
Actually, no. In English they're mild, but in Korean they sound much harsher. It's still low-level profanity, not to be ranked with the nuclear-level bad words, but I wish someone had conveyed this linguistic nuance to me before I called one of my boys 미친 학생 (crazy student).
Anyhow, all the names that start with "Byeong" share a syllable with the curse word for "disabled". Byeongwon (병원) is a hospital, because the syllable Byeong (병)can mean illness. One day i called the Byeongyoon who isn't my Byeongyoon by what I thought was his name, but by the stricken, terrified look on his face, I figured I had actually called him "Disabled" as if it were his name, since his name sounds so much like it, and since I hear the boys cursing in Korean all day. I'm not positive, but I'm about 85% convinced that's what happened in a moment of verbal confusion. I have taken great care with his name since then.
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11:40 AM The kids are all leaving. Filing out like a herd of wildebeest.
I stepped out to look for Jeongmin, and was greeted by Model-Seokho on the porch. I wished him a happy vacation in garbled Korean and he wished me a happy vacation in garbled English (happy winter, happy snow vacation!) and it was lovely.
Backin 1-3, 1-4 B, Supersmart Eunchan was trying to figure out which winter break classes I'll be teaching because he wants to be in them. Daww. Aw. Cute. I want class with you too, Eunchannie.
In the halls, I had plenty of fun. Minjoon and Seonwoo followed me around, chorusing "chocolatechocolatechocolatechocolate" until I turned around and showed them my hands, flattened into judo-chop readiness, and and asked, "Do you want to fight me?", taking a cue from that 3rd-grader from the other day. They squealed and said, "Yesss!"
HH came up, smiling and asking for chocolate. I asked what he did for Christmas and he said he saw a movie, whose Korean title I hadn't heard before. That's a pretty good Christmas, considering. I stopped asking most of the boys what they did for Christmas because it's so depressing to hear they did nothing or they went to a PC bang. I may mentally comprehend that in Korea, Christmas has an importance on par with Arbor Day, but it's still jarring to feel it's non-event-ness.
Shotputter Jinseong got chocolate from me and he tried to block Dongjin from coming close. Jinseong nudged my arm to get me to move along down the hall, while he ran interference with Dongjin, who weighs about 100 pounds less than Jinseong and thus has no fighting chance. Dongjin yelled, "That's my wife, don't touch my wife!" And Jinseong replied, "MY wife." Junho wasn't there or we'd have ourselves a truly epic territorial dispute.
Seongwonnie hid behind a door so he could jump out and surprise me. We walked down the hall doing a cross between fist-bumps and pattycake, just generally having a fun time together.
I remembered that yesterday when I asked 3rd-grade Eunho how he was, he replied (as if standard for C-class boys): "I'm fine thank-you-and-you?" This is the set response they're taught in elementary school, but most native speakers cringe to hear it because no Americans, Canadians, Brits, or South Africans really respond to the "how are you?" question that precise way.
We'll say, "I'm alright. Have you been okay?/ Feeling lousy, but the weekend's almost here!/ I'm good. How are you doing?" etc. There's a million ways to reply, not just one way, and the stilted delivery the boys give usually sounds like memorized blocks of sound instead of a real human response. I don't frown when the boys say "I'm fine thank-you-and-you." I just casually suggest, "You can say, "I'm good!""
So when Eunho told me the standard phrase, Jaehwan interjected, "No, I'm good," looking pointedly at his ignorant friend, then smiling at me to let me know he was a clever boy who could be smooth in another language.You go, Jaehwan, with your natural-sounding English.
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