Korean Job Discussion Forums

[tomato]

"Welcome to the Miriam Ferguson Wegukin Award Ceremony. As most of you know, this ceremony is held every year to honor those wegukin's who have made the greatest contribution to our cherished stereotypes.

"Our first category is in speaking. Our nominees are Aaron Aardvark for calling flirting with Korean girls by saying 'oo-la-la, bonjour, mademoiselle,' Betty Boop for answering every utterance in Korean with "no comprendo," and our winner is Carolina Catfish for calling up the translation service whenever she had to say 'hello.' Let's give all these wonderful people a big hand.

"Our next category is in reading. Our nominees are David Donald Doo for confusing niun's for L's, Eddy Eggbert for confusing kiuk's for sixteenth rests, Frankie Frankfurter for using mium's for check boxes, Gertrude Gurgle for parking in front of 주차금지 signs, and our winner is Harvey Hershey for walking into the wrong room in a 목욕탕. Let's have a hearty round of applause.

"Next is our listening category. Our nominees are Ichabob Ignatius for requiring an interpreter every time anyone said 컴퓨터, 프린터, or 스캐너. Jerry Jordan for correcting a child's pronunciation when he thought child was trying to call him a 'barber,' and our winner is Karl Kruger for creating a disaster a child in his class had to go to the 화장실. Again, I think all these contestants deserve a hand.

"Next we have the self-reliance category. Our nominees are Lola Lopp for calling her director every time she had to put in a light bulb, Melvin Montana for asking for help in reading a subway map printed in romaja, and our winner is Nelson Newhart for getting lost between the school and his apartment three floors up. Here again, let's show our appreciation.

"And now for our geography category. Our nominees are Olive Oberlin for confusing North and South Korea on a map, Peter Pepper for not being able to find the East Sea on a map, Quentin Quincy for trying to buy a train ticket to Tokyo, and our winner is Rosy Robin Ross for looking for Korea on map of Africa. Let's give these fine people a warm round of applause.

"And we certainly must not forget the culture category. Our runners-up are Sammy Slick for trying to buy stationery supplies at a drugstore, Thomas Tallis for celebrating Peppero Day on the wrong calendar day, Ursula Upshaw for celebrating Chuseok on the third Thursday in November, and our winner is Vera Violet Vinn for trying to learn the dance steps to the Kim Bop. Let's show these fine people how much we appreciate them.

"Last but not least is the diplomacy category. Our leading contestants are Warren Wiggins for teaching 종이접기 and calling it おりがみ, Xavier Xerxes for wearing a Santa Claus outfit and passing out gifts in a Buddhist temple, Yolanda Yorgenson for skiing down burial mounds in the wintertime, and our winner is Zabrina Zalman for bragging about Theodore Roosevelt's role in the Portsmouth Conference. Let's tell these people how special they are.

"We thank all of you for being here this evening. We hope to see all of you again next year when we award another fine group of wegukin's. Before we leave, though, let's give all of our contestants another round of applause."

[CasperTheFriendlyGhost]

I guess it's a valid question, but shame on those who voted yes. the whole point of us being here (and this is supposed to be a cultural exchange) is to raise the level of English in the country. Is there some magical way of being a better English speaker without speaking english?

[SuperHero]

Tomato,
Good job using names from Dr. Seuss books, but get over yourself already. Stop being a freaking language nazi.

[tomato]

[shantaram]

No, I don't feel offended. I've read the arguments of various forum-members on this topic before. I still don't understand it, and I never will- how can you go to Korea to teach English and be offended that people speak English to you? Whether inside or outside the classroom, if you are a professional you will take this sort of thing in your stride. If you are a student of the Korean language, you should be able to have that identity and not let it dominate your teacher personality. If you are primarily a student of Korean language, you should surely be culturally aware enough to know that Koreans will identify anyone who looks different as a foreigner, and will probably speak to them in English.

[tomato]

[shantaram]

I'm sure that you're paranoid enough to believe that every Korean person is looking down upon you.

[tomato]

No, not every Korean, just every Korean who speaks to me in English.
Don't exaggerate.

[shantaram]

If you think that every Korean who speaks English to you is looking down on you, that's paranoia.

[hepcat]

I feel gratitude and admiration whem Koreans speak English because my Korean vocab is about ten words.
I think my ability to learn new languages, never strong, is growing worse. My GPA was one of the highest at my uni. but I almost failed 2nd year Spanish. Luckily, my instructor had a crush on me. My French isn't too bad though. Korean=in one ear, out the other. On the plus side, it makes me patient with my struggling students, and amazed at my star pupils.

Good on 'em for learning the global language.

[Freakstar]

[hepcat]

I should add that Koreans rarely speak English to me. Really rarely.

[tomato]

SuperHero and shantaram, please be patient.
I am learning, slowly but surely, to tolerate the Korean attitude toward foreigners.

Today, I made a weekend trip to the children's room at the public library in Chuncheon--one of my favorite places, because the Miriam Ferguson sympathizers have had little success in brainwashing the smaller children.

I read some books to a small child.
The child's mother was surprised, probably because she didn't know that there were foreigners who could read Korean.
She chuckled gently while I read to the child, and she reinforced me by repeating some of the words which I read.
That bothered me somewhat, but I was polite to her because she spoke to me only in Korean--as every Korean outside of English class should.

The child's mother noticed that I had a book in English, which I intended to check out, and she asked me to read that book to the child.
I carefully explained that I already have to speak English Monday through Friday, so I would like to have weekends free to speak Korean.
She had never been in my shoes, so she didn't realize that.

Throughout this this entire interchange, the child's mother never spoke a word to me in English.
Her attitude may still be in the phony liberal stage, and she may still be a long way from regarding wegukin's as real people, but she made a giant leap from the Miriam Ferguson level, so she made a step in the right direction.

In turn, I learned that Koreans have never been in my shoes, so they don't realize that my responsibility for English conversation practice is not something which I want to carry with me on a 24-7 basis.

Don't get me wrong, now. When it comes to 캔 아이 헬프 유 vampires, I can't stand to even look at them, much less speak to them.

[tomato]

According to many Korean Anglophones, we should not speak Korean because that entails making mistakes, and it is wrong to make mistakes.

They would probably have us believe that Saint Peter is up there tallying our mistakes, intent on denying us entry to the Kingdom of Heaven if the demerits go over the maximum.

My response is that we learn from those mistakes, and the benefit therefore outweighs the loss.

Some of you may be so thoroughly brainwashed by all this Miriam Ferguson propaganda that you don't believe me. In such case, I'll give you an example to prove my point:

A woman was standing in line at the bus ticket counter and dropped a coin.
She didn't notice, nobody else noticed, I did not have time to look any words up, and I didn't have a bilingual babysitter protecting me.
This left me no choice but to commit the heinous offense which no well-bred Miriam Ferguson sympathizer would ever want me to commit:
I had to walk up to a Korean and speak to her in Korean!

The best I could do was "동장을 떨어졌습니다."
She said "오" and picked up the coin.

On the bus ride home, I consulted my dictionary and found that the word for coin is 동전, whereas 동장 means "village chief."
The transitive verb for drop is 떨어뜨리다, whereas 떨어지다 is the intransitive verb.

Saint Peter saw the whole thing, so I got 2 more demerits.

[Atavistic]