Top Fives

I'm almost into the last month of teaching. I am flying to Jeju on Saturday (a Korean island south of the main Korean peninsula) and then when I come back I have four weeks left before I'm finished my contract. I'm sure I will look back on my year here in Korea as one of the most fun years of my life.

I'm working on a short video of my time here, but I want to include clips from my trip to Jeju coming up, so I'll finish it and post it next month. For now, here are some top five lists from the past year:


Top 5 Interesting Anecdotes about Korea:

5. In Seoul, there are paths for the blind on the subway and along the street. The paths are created by tiles with shapes protruding in a way that your feet can feel them and follow the path. Then they have other tiles that are different to let you know when you need to stop (at a crosswalk or to get on a subway, etc.) I think it's a pretty good idea.

4. Koreans are very image-conscious. Korean women seem to always be applying make-up. They don't like freckles, so some of them have surgery to remove them. I had a student who had this done, and he came to school the next day with a million little bandaids all over his face. I thought he had the chicken pox. There are very few obese Koreans, and this is not just due to their healthy diet. Apparently Koreans who are slightly overweight can find themselves somewhat ostracized from society.

On a semi-related note, Korean couples love to wear "couples clothes," which means they wear exactly the same thing to show that they are a couple.

3. Dokdo is a tiny group of islands between Korea and Japan which both countries have claimed as their own. Japan actually has its own name for these islands: Takeshima. I have been told by Koreans that if I use the name Takeshima, Koreans will be very angry with me. Apparently there are only two residents on Dokdo: A Korean fisherman and his wife.

2. I am glad that I don't have to drive in Korea, because I would not feel safe doing so. Although they are quite skilled, taxi drivers drive very aggressively in Seoul. On my first day in Korea, I remember the taxi driver avoiding other cars by mere inches while driving at high speeds. They treat red lights as stop signs. I also noticed that parked cars almost always fold their side mirrors in, to avoid them getting clipped off. Buses are even crazier, since they have a schedule to keep. I have seen buses honk a few times before going through a red light without even slowing down.

And then there are the motorcycles. They seem to be the most efficient way of getting around in Seoul, which is why there are countless food chains that deliver via motorcycle. Motorcycles are allowed on the sidewalks, which makes it a lot more dangerous to be a pedestrian. I have also seen motorcycle drivers go the wrong way on one-way streets many times. A friend once told me that Korea might be the only place where you have to look both ways to cross a one-way street.

1. Most Koreans believe in something known as Fan Death. They believe that if you go to sleep with the fan on, you run the risk of dying in your sleep. As a result, fans here are generally sold with a timer funcion, so that the fan will turn off after a set amount of time. I have told Koreans that I have the fan on every night with the window closed, because the sound puts me to sleep. They always reply that I am foolish to do so because I could die.

I was curious about why they believe this, so I did a bit of research. I found out that Fan Death could have originated by the Korean government a long time ago in an attempt to reduce energy consumption. I also found out that the media apparently reports cases of Fan Death, which reinforces this belief. For instance, if there is a suicide, or someone who overdoses on drugs, they might claim that Fan Death was the reason (or a contributing reason) for their death.

Top Five Names

Most of my students have English names, to make it easier for their teachers to remember all their names. Sometimes we get new students and we have the privilege of assigning them an English name. Some teachers like to give them strange names for fun, since they often don't know any better, but some students choose their own comical names. Here are my top five:

5. Sonic - I assumed he named himself after Sonic the Hedgehog, but when I asked him, I discovered Sonic had never heard of such a character. So I'm assuming a different teacher gave him this name.

4. Hera - I don't know if she decided to name herself after the Greek goddess, but Hera was one of my funnier students, and after I got used to her name, I don't think any other name would have suited her.

3. Minnie - She was probably named after Minnie Mouse. On her own, her name isn't that unusual, but the reason she makes the top five is because she was in the same class as...

2. Mighty - I asked him how he got his name, and he told me his parents chose it. I didn't realize that I had a Mighty and a Minnie in the same class until one day we were doing a dialogue, and I paired them together. I then proceeded to chuckle to myself, a little disappointed that no one else could understand the humor.

1. Rucas - Korean has the same character for L and R, so Koreans who speak English often have trouble distinguishing the two. I asked Rucas several times if he was sure it wasn't supposed to be Lucas, but he always insisted that it was spelled with an R. I found myself unable to say Rucas with a straight face, so I proceeded to call him Lucas for the next five months, and no one even noticed.

Top 5 Quotes from Students

5. "Teacher what?" Every student seems to say this when they need help with something. They don't know how to ask, so they just say that instead.

4. "Your feet are very big." It's true. I had trouble finding a new pair of shoes here- they only had my size in Itaewon, which is where all the foreigners live.

3. "Teacher, me ouchie." They often say this one when they are hurt. Am I a terrible person for wanting to laugh when they say it?

2. "Baby one more time." This is a line from a pop song that was on constantly when I first arrived in Korea. You would hear it several times a day walking through a mall or even just down the street. As a result, all the students know the phrase, "One more time," and if I ever used it, they would start singing the song. One student thought that the "Baby" part in front was necessary to convey the right meaning, so he would say "Baby one more time" to me instead.

1. "I want to talk to my bicycle." This was the response from a theme question I asked my students. The question was, "If you had one wish, what would it be?" Jina's answer to the question made me laugh out loud, to which I think she took offence, since she was genuinely interested in being able to talk to her bicycle.