Sunday, &%$*ing Sunday

WARNING: EXPLICIT LANGUAGE




(This warning of course has never stopped anyone from scrolling down in the history of the internet)

I rode the subway home after a busy Sunday with a few friends.  End of the weekend depression was pawing at me.  Then, down at the other end of the car, an old woman got on a phone and started yelling.

"FUCK", she said.  "FUCK korean korean korean FUCK". Now I don't want you to misunderstand and think that this little old lady had a penchant for the finer things the English language has to offer.  Instead you should understand, (and many of you certainly have experience), that when spending a prolonged period of time in a foreign country it's always wise to pick up their very worst swear words.  Knowing them is a little like knowing that when a dog wags it's tail it's happy and when it lowers it's tail it is looking to bite you in the throat.  Body language can sometimes get lost in translation, but let me tell you that if you hear 'shiball' in Korea somebody's angry.

Now this woman has some stamina.  She was reading the script for Casino.  She is making a young Eddie Murphy proud and an old Eddie Murphy sad.  A man in a very sharp business suit gets up an confronts her.  Among other grievances I  could imagine him laying on her, there is a very young-but-not-so-young-he-can't-learn-these-words boy sitting across from her with his mother, (who was staring daggers).  Inexplicably, she repeatedly shakes his hand while continuing on the phone.  He eventually sits back down, although I don't think it was because they'd reached an accord.

The subway security show up and she gets off the phone.  By 'get off the phone' I mean she hangs up and gives the cell back to the appalled looking teen beside her, who quickly gets up and heads to a different car that doesn't know he lent his phone to the angriest grandma.

At this point I am trying to learn Korean through force of will.  The way she went on and on with security I am certain she was explaining every offense committed by whoever was on the other end of the line.  They asked her to get off for a long time with the train not moving.  Then the train started moving and they stayed on, asking her to get off.  But this woman had mastered placing 'fuck' four times in a sentence.  She was going to have no problem telling these guys 'no'.  And so they left.

Now as the security left, so too did my friends.  It fell on me to see this woman through to the end of her adventure or at least until I had to transfer to a bus in three stops.  So when she ambled off, blue over sized trousers sagging hard in the back, I waited two minutes and followed her.

I came into the next car just in time to hear her give a mighty 'SHIBALL' and see the very unamused youth, (late teens, early twenties), take his phone back.  Yes, so committed was this woman to telling someone 'fuck' that she had requisitioned another cell from another person who was morally obligated to help her and gone to town on it.  She stalked through the car, grumbling for the phones of teens like a troll.  They all refused her though, the girls with wide eyes and the boys by pretending to be very very sleepy.

It was my stop, and as I walked out of the car I watched her walk into the next one, to borrow cell phones and scream obscenities into them.

Precious memories.

I rarely publish anything this impotent.

This is not my story to tell, but I'm going to tell it anyway. I think it's the lesser of the two evils that will be discussed.

Our hero, lets call her "Bittnee" works at an elementary school of some repute.  Last year in fact they were a 'model school', a title that like Miss Universe comes with a great deal of scrutiny.  Let's replace 'slim, attractive and successfully suppressing sex tapes' with 'slim, attractive and producing high test scores.'

Now it is an old hat that school in Korea is competitive.  The middle school students are ranked from first to worst in every subject.  High school's must be applied for similar to Universities.  Elementary is no exception.  So they have contests.  Real winner and loser affairs that are not looking to spare anyone's feelings.  Throw them in the spotlight and see who swims.  Ok, fair enough, understood.

So Bittnee's school ran an English speaking contest.  Third graders participated, sixth graders participated.  Some other grades participated.  A lot of English was spoken and it was good and it was bad and that's how these things always go.  Two winners were picked.  The second round of the competition was the creation of an entirely new speech for a city wide contest of school champions. This one was to be submitted in writing prior to the competition.  So the children do the work, put in the time, and create new speeches.  Bittnee takes a look.  They aren't bad.  Not exactly 'Paradise Lost' but then the writers don't look like this:

Crazy ol' John Milton

They look like this:

Deserving of support an encouragement.

And that's for the best I figure.  So the winners of the school competition hand in their new speeches and what do their teachers decide?  That they are not good enough.  For example: the sentences are too short.  These speeches will embarrass the school and so what they will do is they will tell the children their speeches were sent in but that they were deemed losers immediately and will not get to participate in the city wide competition.  In reality, they will just, oh, I don't know, burn and swallow them to generate warmth to compensate for what their cold cold heart should be supplying them with.  Bittnee asks the teachers if she could work with the students to help them rewrite their speeches.  She is told no, there is no time.  We will simply lie to the children, it is that best way.

And so I suppose that the kids will never know the difference.  They have lost before and they will lose again.  The teachers will not be embarrassed because no one but me and you will know and we'll forget of course.
Their decision though is cowardly, and their students deserve better.

A addendum: In the twisted psyche of  the ex-pat, there grows the proclivity to look around and see everything as an example of THE CULTURE in which you are immersed.  It is an easy thing to say "this is so typically Korean".  The importance of saving face here is not to be unappreciated.  What should also be appreciated though is that the decision of these teachers is not, I believe, representative of the decision that most teachers here would make.  It instead represents a far more international culture, prolific although not popular throughout the world.  Namely, being a fucking dick.

Can you do me a favour?

Remind me that the teacher who sits beside me is leaving on Thursday because the other teacher is coming back from maternity leave.

Remind me to check the price of a BOSS tuner pedal.

Remind me to pick up my new favorite cereal, the one with Tony the Tiger on it that isn't 'Frosted Flakes' but some kind of 'Honeycomb' knock off that doesn't taste much like 'Honeycomb' and is browner.

Remind me that I need to set up a bank account at the Korean Exchange Bank to transfer money home cheaper.

Remind me to harass HSBC because they said they'd get back to me about my Korea money transfer question in two days and it's been two weeks.

Remind me that it's Friday and I told myself I would stay in.  Remind me it's because of that story I'm supposed to finish by Tuesday.

Remind me that all the books I stole from REDACTED need to be taken back to REDACTED before REDACTED finds out and REDACTED me over a REDACTED REDACTED.


Remind me that I need to go shopping for presents.

Remind me that I need to know how to play at least four of my band's songs on the ukulele by tomorrow 1pm.  I'll forget trying to remember all these other things.

Remind me to look for coloured sharpies to finish the t-shirt I am drawing on.

Remind me as well to remember all the other things I need to remember that are too confidential for a blog.  I'll know what you mean.

Coming in for the Kill

I am trying to be diligent.  I am trying diligently to stay focused.  I am trying to focus on being productive.  I am having none of it.  We may as well call it ladies and gentlemen, at 10:48 am, it has been declared a 'phone-it-in-Friday'.  I have two more classes that will consist of playing "The Price is Right" because it turns out that after the third grade finishes their exams five weeks before the end of the school year so that their marks can be sent to high schools and they can potentially feel the first door to their future shut on them at the calloused age of fifteen, both them and the teachers shut off.  I knew going into this last month that the students were going to be flexing their collective "don't give a shit" muscle.  And why not?  They study more hours than I think we even have in Canada.  I had kind of thought that we teachers would have to stand firm in the face of this and marshal education through the storm.  But the children cry out and I am told by my minders, "Let them play Games."  And why not?  The teachers word hard too.  So we are all on board, sailing this open sail into winter vacation.  The only anchors are the children's parents, some of whom apparently complained because the kids were being showed "too many videos".  All I can say to them is that they created these exam monsters and no one aught to be surprised that they scream to be appeased once they bite through the chains that you sharpened their teeth for.

The Weekend is Out.

P.S. Friday Jam brought to you by http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpEOErRV-u4&feature=related