I was running the other day and passed herds of Korean teenagers. In some ways they’re just like every other group of teenagers I’ve come across. They travel in packs, they take up the whole footpath, they’re plugged into cellphones and MP3s, they eat nothing but junk food, they’re noisy, immature and giggly, they wear terrible school uniforms that make them look uglier and more awkward than even they dare to imagine.
Except, for one major aspect. Korean teens are not intimidating. They’re not even mildly irritating. I ran past them without feeling a single barb or leer.
I would like to think I’m not usually intimidated by people less than half a decade younger than me. But on a short break home in New Zealand, when I walked past a group of high school kids, I was profoundly put off by their appearance and attitude. They were sneering, noisy and dirty. They’d throw stuff at passing cars, sit ten to a Mazda in the McDonald’s carpark, hoot and deride rivals in throbbing cars cruising past, swear, spit, smoke, wear clothes that a roadside hooker would deem slutty. The girls had bleached hair with dark roots, wore black g-strings pulled over their muffin tops and white pants with dragging, filthy hems. The boys pulled their caps low to hide wretched, angry baby faces.
They wanted me to buy them cheap vodka. I refused, and walked away from a hurl of abuse, half of a well-aimed double cheeseburger bouncing off my skull. Obviously, I’m uncool.
But I haven’t yet seen Korean teenagers reach the same level of general unpleasantness. Although they hang out in the same numbers in the same public places, I don’t get bad vibes from them. They study. They hold hands, boys too, sometimes. Their hair is tidy. Uniforms are always navy blue, dark green and white. They carry umbrellas. They don’t hang out in cars. They wear glasses. They are decorous. All in all, they’re a tame lot. There’s no rebellious streak, no goths, no bogans, no punks, no skinheads, surfies, skaties, druggies, gangs or any other subculture that people invent to give themselves an identity.
The only graffiti I’ve seen is the usual “김유미 4 이기석” carved into desks and the backs of bathroom doors. Near my house there is a lone scrawl of hanguel in blue spray paint. “Resist!” it exhorts. But even this is pathetic, a desperate, impulsive half-thought; there’s no clue as to what we’re supposed to be resisting or rebelling against. The other local example of graffiti is the painting of the Stars and Stripes elsewhere in town. It’s been updated with “BUSH PIG DOG DIE” lettered in thick black capitals. Fair enough.
So Korea has a lack of restive, assertive teens. I have several theories as to why this is so: social strictures, family pressure, the lingering effects of Confucianism, an education system that staunches rebellion and creative thinking, the driving need to conform and be like everyone else. Or maybe I just haven’t been to the local McDonald’s enough on Saturday night. Either way, Korea’s lack of rebellious teenagers means I’m safe when walking the streets at night, free from entreaties to buy cheap booze and cheeseburger missiles.
I was standing at the pedestrian crossing, wondering idly why in Korea the little red man is not little at all but instead strangely squat and muscular, a sturdy weightlifter with a few extra pixels to his biceps. When I’m here, he says, the road is mine and you’re not going anywhere, buddy. Stand down. Then the little green man takes over. He’s a lithe and active fellow striding out confidently as though he’s not about to get run over by a fried chicken boy on a clapped-out scooter, who gets paid by the delivery and doesn’t give a toss about whose toes he slices off as he swings around corners, one knee scraping the ground, his delicate hands warm and snug inside giant mitts. The red man is menacing, the green man friendly. That’s the way it is with traffic lights.
I was standing at the pedestrian crossing pondering this when a green and yellow school minivan (GnB English Academy, 766 0682) pulled up at the red light and some kid sitting in the back seat, the den of troublemakers the world over, yelled at me out the window. Nothing new. Foreigners get yelled at oh, maybe twelve times a day. Usually it’s a gasping “What’syournamenicetomeetyou!” from schoolgirls who then fall over laughing. You come to expect it as part and parcel of being a tiny minority in a country where the entire population of 40 million is descended from Dan-gun, venerable half-man/half-bear ancestor. Indeed, earlier in the week, “You panty yellow!” had come from the same van and the same corner, which I had to grudgingly admit was a little funny. But quite wrong since, coming from New Zealand, I don’t wear panty; I wear knickers.
“Waegookin!” the kid yelled, and like a fool, I looked. A tiny fist was thrusting out the window.
“Waegookin! Fuck you!” I squinted. I was being flipped off by an eight-year-old.
The van swung around the corner and peeled off as the kids inside erupted in jeers and laughter, half their bodies hanging out the windows. Even the driver was chuckling. There’s not much more disconcerting than being laughed at by a group of kids, and kids with wheels at that.
I stood fuming on the sidewalk. The light changed and the green man flashed, playfully beckoning me to join him. Fried chicken boys swooped past me, their helmetless heads bent low over their handlebars. I imagined kicking their bikes so they tipped out from underneath them and sent bodies sprawling into traffic, and felt much better.
Debate rages on the morality of giving your kids English names. Some teachers argue that it’s degrading and patriarchal to impose English names on Korean students. Others think it’s fun, and no worse than being called Jacqueline in French class. Some schools insist on it. Some don’t care. Some kids already have English names given them by another teacher. Some kids simply deserve to be re-named Crap or Lackwit.
Giving your kids English names when they’ve already got perfectly good Korean ones may very well be degrading and patriarchal, but when you have Sae-yoon, Song-hyun, Sung-min, So-min, Song-hee, Sung-yon, Sung-ho, Song-ho and Min-su running around jumping on tables and sticking crayons up their noses, you’re going to wish you had something to scream that you can get a handle on.
A selection pulled from Dave’s:
“I once had a young guy named Peter who one day changed his name to Catherine. Couldn’t tell me why, and neither myself nor the Korean teacher translating that it was a girl’s name could convince him otherwise.”
“I’ve had many: Ice, Rain and Snow, Hikki, Genius (he failed), Diety, Mermaid, Rainbow, Dandelion, Eleven, Becareful, Zero, Zorro, Blue Storm, Green Horse and Golden Dawn. I’m still waiting for Golden Shower and Yellow Snow.”
“I had girls called Icecream, Shakespeare, Shinichi, Juice, Chocolate.”
“Hippo, Glory and LT6R. All adult men.”
“He decided Hamburger Cheese suited him well.”
“Telecomunications man, Ton, Hellboy, Potato killer, Cool, Blue, Iceman, Dumb (and his friend Dumber), Ice-T.”
“I had a class where the boys were called Breanne, Donna, Bess, etc and the girls were named Frank, Phil, Bob, George.”
“Sweet, Sweetie, Billy Psycho, Baby, Yellow, Bang Bang, Orifice, Stone Cold, Latifah, Rambo, Dark, Penalty Kick, Great, Jackal, ET, Ding, Rabbit, Star, Top, Terminator, H.O.T (a boy band), Little Italy, Gandalf, Pro, Chandler, Mint, Spanky, Dream On, Bear, Elbow, Chicken Guy, Airheart, Ramses, Dr. No, Lose (Rose), Risa (Lisa), Pooh, Ever, Vladistain, Fart, Mango.”
“I enjoyed teaching Mirror Princess, Smile, Adolf, Money, Bomb, Kaka, Wahaha, Automan, Mike Bibby, Hot Sauce, Aruba, Frog Mouse, Mr. Perfect, Harry Potter, Super Computer, Fishwood, Shumacher and Luberchun.”
Despite the temptation to name your students Ross, Chandler, Joey, Rachel, Monica, Phoebe and Marcel, or Omar, Shariff, Latisha, LaToya, Jamal and Jaleel, remember some of these names stick for life and the kids are going to have many more foreign teachers after you.
All the more reason to christen the kid Thunder Tom Dragon and give the next teacher a giggle.
Write a love story with two characters. Make sure you write a beginning, a middle and an end.
The assignment’s on the board but the middle-school girls refuse to work. Sang-yon, the single boy, is quiet and sullen in a corner, lost without his mates. We covered all this in the last few lessons: creating characters, dialogue, basic story structure. Now, I try to get them excited about creating a story of their own.
The girls are a battle every lesson. As usual, they’re busy with handpon, digital cameras and something new today. Ji-yeon’s writing a letter to a boy at school, which they’re all giggling over. She’s written it in green ink, the hanguel characters childish and rounded with exaggerated loops and strokes, and smiley faces in the circles. I remember when I wrote like that.
I drum my fingers on the table and try to initiate some conversation, getting them to think of love stories they know: Romeo and Juliet, Cinderella and Prince Charming, King Kong and Naomi Watts. Yes, they can write about anyone: teachers, friends, movie stars. Sang-yon perks up and asks if he can write about monsters and killing. Yes, Sang-yon. You can write a horror if you want to. Just include two characters and a beginning, middle and an end.
The girls are not impressed. After ten minutes of cajoling I lose my patience and snatch away their cellphones and cameras, holding them ransom until 8:50. They always act shocked when I take away their life support.
Ji-yeon sulks and scratches at the desk with her sharpu. I get angry and tell her to start bloody writing or she’s not getting her handpon back. She gets out her electronic dictionary and starts fiddling with it. I lean over her shoulder. She’s playing Tetris.
“Ji-yeon!” I yell. “Do your work!”
Finally, she starts writing. Two other girls are busy working. The others are staring at various points around the room. I sit steaming at them for twenty minutes, leaping down their throats whenever they dare whisper to each other.
It’s 8:45. I don’t care anymore. I’m annoyed with them and don’t want to see their stupid faces. I tell the students that they can go early. I’ve done everything wrong. It has been a maddening hour.
They snatch up their bags and run out, dropping their papers in front of me. Sang-yon, who I ignored all lesson because he was being quiet, has drawn monsters and swords, and written ice-cream killer monster. Because he never gives me any trouble I forgive him. The two girls with their heads together have actually written a complex love story involving my co-teacher, a movie theatre, and me. Naomi-teacher dies at the end of the story. Four girls have drawn masterful Japanese anime: large-eyed heroines with swishing sabres, pouts and whipping hair. I’m impressed by their skill.
Ji-yeon sets a piece of paper in front of me.
Love Story
for all the world
woman and man love subsist
woman and man love divide
She’s drawn smiley faces inside every o.
It’s a love story. It has two characters. It has a beginning, a sense of middle, and an end. I can’t argue with this. Although she’s used the dictionary badly it reads like poetry. She holds out her hand for her handpon and I give it to her reluctantly; my last shred of power. She flounces off, shiny black bob swinging.
Beaten by a bunch of fourteen year olds, again.
