Accidental Swear-words
One of the many pleasurable things about teaching is the one hundred percent accidental mistakes that children have the habit of making. I was teaching one class about food, and they were creating their own menus. One student, Holly, drew a picture of a cola can, with the word 'cock' printed neatly beside it. Others tend to write 'crap' instead of 'crab' and sometimes, 'shit' instead of 'ship'. A lot of it has to do with the marginal(!) differences between English pronunciation and Korean - the Korean phonetic equivalent of P, for example, is the same as their B sound. R and L are similar (it's always entertaining to make them say 'lemon'). Still, nothing makes me snigger more than an inappropriate word, especially if it has been arrived at by thoroughly innocent means. And no, I don't think I will be maturing any time soon.
My new i-Pod arrived today. Yay!
I went to Osan with the Munro Monster - or is that Crazy Cara, at the weekend where we partied with GIs. She's on her way back to the Emerald Isle in about eight days time, which she is pretty thrilled about. We got mauled by weird men from Ohio, I defeated some poor chap at pool, which he tried to sabotage on the last shot by getting his mate to knock into me as I was cueing for the black ball - pah! I was also taught how to two-step in a country bar where, when we walked in, about one hundred loyal American citizens were singing their national anthem and staring misty-eyed at a huge screen with the insipid Faith Hill belting her lungs out. We just sort of stood there, arms hanging limply by our sides, afraid to turn our backs to go to the bar.
There are only two kinds of men here in Korea - foreign teachers and male GIs. Korean men are petrified of Western women - or what their mothers would make of them, at the very least. So your choice is instantly limited. Male teachers are often escaping their own rather inadequate social lives back home (there are exceptions but you'd be surprised at how many pale, chubby male Canadians amble into the Incheon Airport arrivals lounge) but through a terrible streak of fate, such Leviathans of blokes can almost instantly pull some lithe, immaculate Korean woman, albeit with uncorrected stigmatisms. GIs work similarly, but they are probably less fussy, and often rely on the services of 'juicys' to keep them carnally satisfied. I'm not complaining - I found an absolute gem of a bloke - but this is a shout-out of female solidarity to any woman in Korea who thinks that such poor specimens are found wanting. She would be correct.
My new i-Pod arrived today. Yay!
I went to Osan with the Munro Monster - or is that Crazy Cara, at the weekend where we partied with GIs. She's on her way back to the Emerald Isle in about eight days time, which she is pretty thrilled about. We got mauled by weird men from Ohio, I defeated some poor chap at pool, which he tried to sabotage on the last shot by getting his mate to knock into me as I was cueing for the black ball - pah! I was also taught how to two-step in a country bar where, when we walked in, about one hundred loyal American citizens were singing their national anthem and staring misty-eyed at a huge screen with the insipid Faith Hill belting her lungs out. We just sort of stood there, arms hanging limply by our sides, afraid to turn our backs to go to the bar.
There are only two kinds of men here in Korea - foreign teachers and male GIs. Korean men are petrified of Western women - or what their mothers would make of them, at the very least. So your choice is instantly limited. Male teachers are often escaping their own rather inadequate social lives back home (there are exceptions but you'd be surprised at how many pale, chubby male Canadians amble into the Incheon Airport arrivals lounge) but through a terrible streak of fate, such Leviathans of blokes can almost instantly pull some lithe, immaculate Korean woman, albeit with uncorrected stigmatisms. GIs work similarly, but they are probably less fussy, and often rely on the services of 'juicys' to keep them carnally satisfied. I'm not complaining - I found an absolute gem of a bloke - but this is a shout-out of female solidarity to any woman in Korea who thinks that such poor specimens are found wanting. She would be correct.
posted by Korrena at 3:31 AM
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