Our Canadian friend James teaches elementary school in
Masan, a little country town outside of Busan.
We met James a month before we went to Korea, at a hostel in Taipei, but
in order to accompany him to school, we had to tell the other teachers that we
were all the best of childhood friends from Canada. In order to convince James to bring us along,
we promised him we’d teach a lesson so we could all look like idiots together, speaking
slowly in front of Korean children.
Read did not bring socks to school. This was a big mistake.
James explained that if you don’t wear socks with your teacher slippers
in Korea, you basically look like a homeless person. Read seemed unconvinced until a lady teacher
walked past us, gasped at Read’s bare homeless feet and literally yelled, no
socks! We had to run to the convenience store
to buy socks before class began. They looked great, like
socks from a 7-11 across from a rural Korean school.
It’s also important to know that tattoos are not allowed to
be shown at Korean school, so James wears this great bandage and lets all the
children assume he’s been in a terrible burn accident.
(Please note the enormous busts sitting on the
shelf. They are of two obscure
Florentine noblemen accompanied by one foot.
An essential learning device for Korean kindergarten)
James teaches three lessons a day, ascending in age groups,
so Read got to give his power point presentation thrice. It begins with an introduction:
James had the kids guess where Read is from. I kid you not, every single one of them
guessed America. Next they guessed where
I was from. Answers included India,
Pakistan, The Philippines, and my favorite guess – Saudi Arabia. James later informed me that Koreans all want light skin, so all these guesses were highly offensive.
Finally, we tell the kids I’m American and no one believes
me. We move along. Read explains that New York is a city:
That New York is his home:
But before New York, Read explains that he and James grew up
together in Canada, with a childhood school picture to prove their closeness
and long time bond:
Read identified himself as the bowl cut boy in the middle of
the first row, next to the albino kid.
We then begin an elaborate game of making the children guess
which 1890’s schoolboy is James:
The Kindergarteners loved it. The second graders were dubious. The fifth graders thought we were full of
shit. The important thing is that we
Canadians had a great time.
So, my turn to teach arrives and let’s be real, I was
sleeping off my soju while Read was making his power point the night
before. I’m going to teach the kids
MASH.
But at the board, I panic.
I ask James if it’s socially acceptable for me to teach them the
difference between a mansion and a shack (for those of you who did not attend
elementary school in the 90s, rules
here).
Can I put the names of the boys in the class on the board as this little
Korean girl’s future husbands? James the
Canadians is like, THAT’S what MASH is?! It's a no.
So, we start playing the worst game of MASH ever, with no
MASH along the top and three inoffensive categories, great for elementary
schoolers in a conservative Asian country: favorite foods, types of clothing,
colors. It makes absolutely no god damn
sense. After ten minutes of “playing the
game”, I reveal the girl’s future as, “you will eat steak in a sweater and you
love yellow” and all the kids are like WTF.
But we brought the kids candy, so in the end they forgot
about the American guy who lied to them and the Saudi girl who taught them the
wackest game ever.
It was pretty exhausting.
Props to James-Teacher (the kids call him that like it’s his last name)!
