Jehovah Jehovah

During my time here I’ve been making an effort to connect with locals, or rather they’ve been making efforts to connect with me. On occasion, when soju (Korean rice liquor, people drink 3 litres of the stuff then complain how toxic it is) has been involved they’ve tried to make that connection literal, but for the most part it’s involved shouting ‘hi’ at me, looking me up and down, or saying ‘American?’ before I say no and smash the nearest blunt object into their face. With broken teeth, they’ll follow up with ‘Canadian?’ The process occurs again before finally they say ‘England’ and we can be friends.

One of these connections has been with a Korean going by the English name of Brian. I met him; or rather he chased me and stopped me, on the way home from work. He was friendly, and when it came to goodbyes a little too friendly with hands, but he was pleasant enough and we arranged a man date.

That was before he dropped the bomb.

Brian took me to a spot above the city, where we shared some pasta and questions about our respective cultures. All went well until I asked him about military service, something that is mandatory in Korean law. Brian told me he hadn’t served, but instead spent his time in jail as he is a Jehovah’s Witness. Cue horror film music and gasps all around.

I must admit to limited knowledge of JWs, mainly limited to the fact they refuse blood donations and believe people walked with dinosaurs and talked to snakes. That’s usually my fill of anything Christ related and I head back home to read Asterix cartoons to bring me back to a far more logical way of thinking.

However, on this occasion he was my ride home, and so I listened. I found out that around 1000 people are currently in Korean prisons for objecting to military service. That’s a lot of JWs. Even more when you consider they believe there to be limited places in heaven. If I knew I was going for a particularly competitive job then I’m not sure I’d be spreading the word about it so eagerly at 8am each morning.

Either way Brian did try to convert me, but I showed him Buddhist merchandise I’d bought at a temple and he seemed to back away, like a vampire from the garlic, except mine didn’t smell. I’d say Brian wasn’t trying to take my soul, but considering JWs can’t play football on the Sabbath, or enjoy the wine Jesus was so fond of, he wasn’t too far off.

Lost and found in translation

A couple of days ago I was called into the office of the Director of the Academy I work for. That is Mr. Choo, the same Mr. Choo that met me at the airport.
My only real dealings with Mr Choo were pestering him in the early days to turn on the hot water in our apartment, something he forgot to do for some days, chuckling as he informed me it was another cold shower that night. I also had the pleasure of being observed by him.

I must stress at this point that Mr Choo has never taught a class in his life, nor does he speak any English. However, he observed my entirely English spoken class none the less. The class was well planned if I may say so myself. I had the students split into two teams and got them to write quiz questions from a text, for the opposing team. I supplemented this with my own questions. A question lesson if you will.
Mr. Choo’s feedback (he was somewhat shocked I asked for any) was that I should ask more questions, especially with such a young class. It was my oldest class, and so with that I learned not to take him too seriously.

All this leads us back to the office I shared with him and a translator, on a fine winter’s day. He had called me in to ask how I teach. I told the translator my methods, she proceeded to nod and stay silent. Mr. Choo began to tell me what I should be doing, namely one particular thing I should be doing. He told me, or rather the translator did: “you prepare too much, too many resources, just speak to the children.” I nodded and asked back, “OK, can you give me any advice how to go about that, what to talk about?” He nodded again when my words were finally spoken to him.
The advice I received was wise indeed: “prepare more, more resources.”

Now the quick ones amongst you may have spotted something here, but being a little slowly I confirmed my position with him. “So I should prepare less by preparing more?” I looked at him, expecting him to smile at any moment. Maybe I had the greatest boss in the all the world, the most dry humoured boss I could wish for. My appetite for irony was whetted; I’ve been starved, spending my time socialising with Americans.

Sadly he nodded in confirmation and looked quite pleased with himself. Prepare less by preparing more, it’s like a retarded version of the Cub Scouts.

The Future must end

Firstly I must make two important points, put into list form for your convenience:
1 – The Future is no longer the child I wish to father, rather the child I wish to send walking over a minefield wearing magnetic boots, if such things even exist. For his behaviour in my class, and general lack of any redeeming qualities I would invent such items.
2 – The greatest slogan t-shirt has been gazumped, and with some force. I read as I saw:
“The world is full of joy and the world is full of hardship, but the joy is only possible because of the hardship suffered by Helen Keller.”
Somebody, somewhere, wrote that and sold it to a Korea t-shirt company; sniggering at the time I hope.