Friday was Teacher's Day (check out the SK entry) here in Korea. Teacher's Day is a national holiday where the school staff just basically takes it easy, teaches no class, and eats cake and ice cream all day. Pretty sweet deal. I found the letter pictured above on my desk after school. I think the girl was so shy she crossed out her name and instead went with the fail-safe Britney Spears angle. That totally made my day.
I teach one adult class per week and is by far my favorite class. The class consists of 15 middle-aged Korean housewifes and college students who are trying to brush up on their English either for job advancement, personal enrichment, or just foreign curiosity. It's great because I bring in a news article, usually a current event that affects both of our respective cultures, and we just chew the fat for an hour. Anyways, for Teacher's Day they came in with a huge fruit cake and we all sat in a circle eating cake with chopsticks.
The adult class is more interested in Western culture than learning about pronouns and prepositions so they just ask me questions and are totally in awe at my responses. For example, the drive-thru is a foregin concept for them, as is fast food. Korean cuisine takes great pride in their 'slow food' approach to cooking. Meaning, if it's fast and easy to prepare (with the exception of kimbap (my favorite)) it probably isn't worth doing at all. So, the whole idea of ordering a full meal and having it in your car 3 mintues later is absolutley mind-boggling to them.
It's funny, it's really hard to see America or Americans from an objective view when you're living there, meaning, it looks a lot different from the outside. Being in another country and listening to people's ideas and stereotypes on somewhere you've lived your entire life is very interesting, to say the least. My friends here who speak about these stereotypes always say how surprised they are that I'm not this or I'm not that. No Min-ho, I'm not a McDonald's-eating, shotgun-toting, bible-thumping, crass and vulgar person 24 hours a day-- only half that. I love comparing and contrasting Western and Eastern culture, it's entirely interesting and probably my favorite thing to talk about here with native Koreans who have never traveled or studied abroad. I'm trying to debunk the bad sterotypes one person at a time... not all Americans like McDonald's and Britney Spears, in fact, they both suck.
You obviously have never had a McRib...
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