Korean Job Discussion Forums

[bejarano-korea]

Based on true experiences, I have tried to steer it towards humour, any comments would be gratefully recieved.

One thing you notice about living in South Korea is that the locals are very proud/chauvinistic about being Korean, they love being Korean and they all seem to have an encyclopediac knowledge about Korean inventions that have benefited the world. Koreans on the whole are pretty much convinced that if you are of another nationality then you are bound to be a bit of a tosser and they all seem to have the opinion that you would love to be a Korean just like them.

During a lesson with my high school students (between the ages of 15-17) about inventions, I asked them to name famous inventors and they came up with just three, Thomas Edison, The Wright brothers and Chung Myun Byung.

'Who?' said I.

'Aaaah he invented clothes hanger - he great Korean inventor'

'Ah I see' I said completely unimpressed and unsuprised but decided to keep my mouth shut.

That is until today when I had my advanced class, A1 class, today the most vocal member of the class, der fuhrers spoilt brat niece whose name is 'Jane' decided to inform BK teacher why being Korean is better than being English.


'Why?'

'Because our language is better'

'Is that why you are learning my language and absolutley nobody is learning yours'

'Our language is beautiful,... Engl..'

'Your language is beautiful? this is how it sounds to my ears':

'ChingchongChingchongChingchongChingchong
ChingchongChingchongChingchongChingchong... Meh!'

'BK teach...'

'ChingchongChingchongChingchongChingchongChingchong
ChingchongChingchongChingchong... Meh!'


Before laughing in her face.


Now before anyone calls me a racist, just let me say that I think there are lots of things about Korea that shit all over the place I come from, its cleaner, its safer, people are more prosperous and if I could see into the future and found out I was married to a Korean lady with half Korean babies I would be pretty damn happy... however it doesn't change the fact that spoken Korean sounds like...

'ChingchongChingchongChingchongChingchongChingchong
ChingchongChingchongChingchong... Meh!'

Is that a language of beauty? I don't fucking think so.

In fact once when my B2 class where all talking to each other in Korean during lesson time instead of doing their bloody work like I told them to, I clapped loudly for their attention and I went:

'ChingchongChingchongChingchongChingchongChingchongChingchong... Meh!'

Taking the pee out of them and they all went silent and said in astouded voices... 'aaaaaaaaaah BK teacher speaks Korean'

I kid you not.

Anyway the advanced class decided to change tack.

'Korean is superior because it is a scientific language' [1] Jane cried.

'If it is a more scientific language than English, why is it the Koreans have only invented a bloody coat hanger.

I hit a raw nerve, Jennifer and the rest of the class ran to the board and started to write down every Korean invention which included

A rain gauge
A sundial
A turtle ship (I have no fcking idea what that is either)
Cider (who thought Zumerzet was in Korea)
Metal printing press (Who thought Johannes Gutenberg was Korean?)
Hanguel (The 'scientific' Korean alphabet, invented by King Jeongsong - 'we know who invented Korean language - you don't know who invented the alphabet' chided Jane - Like as if I give a fck!)


'Yeah and you forgot two others' said I adding to their quaint little list on the board.

Kimchi
Clothes Hangers

'And who' I said with a deliberate theatrical pause ' invented cars,aeroplanes, computers, penecillin, the internet, trains, etc etc, it weren't the bloody Koreans kids!'

You could see their little faces go red with fury as I laughed at their silly little list, what I was meant to say of course was something along the lines of 'Korea is the worlds greatest nation and I defer to your greatness as a pseudo English Congolese Peruvian pleb from Wigan'

But I didn't and they stormed off to complain to the fuhrer about I disrespecting 'Korean culture'

'They said you laughed at Korean language' said der fuhrer.

'I did nothing of the sort' I lied 'They said the Korean language was better than the English language and I asked them why, that is all' I said with a saintly air.

'Well, BK, we are very proud of being Korean, you should be more respectful'

'I should - I'm sorry' I agreed though I wanted to warn her and say that these kind of attitudes led to the creation of Adolf's 'Greater Germany' and look what happened to that lot in the end however judging by the tone of der fuhrers voice I thought I'd better keep my gob shut though I mentally sticking two fingers and pulling a shitty arsed moony at Korea and their ridiculous chauvinistic nationalism.

Anyway, the lesson ended off with a run in with 'Tony' a tubby little boy with a round face shaped like a plate, he has a permemant semi dopey look on his face and is probably the laziest fker in the school - a feat that takes some doing by the way, as usual he did no work and I said quite loudly,

'Done no work as usual? Why do you waste my time and your parents money by coming here you fat doughnut faced freak?'

I can do that as everyone in the school has negligible English language skills, especially in English vernacular.

Except for new student 'Kelly', 5 years in an International school in Bejing where the teaching medium was English meant that she could exactly decipher what I said to Tony.

'Cawos teacherrrrrrrrr - why you say Tony is 'fat doughnut faced freak'

'I did not!' I stammered

The class were now up in arms.

'Teacherrrrrrrrr you say Tony is fat doughnut faced freak'

'Kelly, I did not' I lied 'Shut up lying'

Envisioning my immediate future thumbing a lift with my packed suitcases to Incheon airport I had to think fast.

'I said errrmmm... Tony... I'm freaking out for a doughnut because I'm hungry and it is nearly dinnertime' I said

'Nooooooooo teacher you did not say that'

'Kelly, are you still angry because I said Koreans are famous for inventing coat hangers and kimchi?'

'Chingchongchingchongchingchong - BK teacher Babo - Meh!'

I think that says it all!


[1] http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/special/special_view.asp?newsIdx=16228&categoryCode=181

[it's full of stars]

Great story. Seein' as you're a boxer you should have slapped a few of the teachers too.

[bejarano-korea]

[Khenan]

Well, it is moderately humorous, so good job on that part. I would cut out some of the chingchong stuff... it's too much as is. More than anything, you need to work on your phrasing and sentence structure. I don't know if this is for a future blog, or a book, or what, but right now it reads like a post on a message board. Quite a bit of punctuation errors. With regard to your phrasing and sentence structure, you need to work on finding a "voice" in your writing. I can almost hear it, but it's not quite there yet. Work on cutting the fat and writing in more of a classical prose style as opposed to writing on a message board.

[Kimchieluver]

I give it an 8.5 .. the humour value bumped it up.

[SeoulShakin]

The only thing I noticed was that it is King Sejong who invented the alphabet, not King JeongSong.

Otherwise, not bad.

[eamo]

I think your story is quite good. B+.

It's fun to bust the balls of Koreans about the ridiculous things they take national pride in. And, of course, being from Great Britain, it's so easy to make them see what a truly inventive nation can create.

I think there is a bit of truth to the case that Korean is an easy language. Especially the writing script. But Koreans have blown this out of proportion by claiming it's superior to other scripts. Completely failing to recognise that Hangeul, like most scripts, can only accurately write the phonics of the language of its creators. Hangeul falls flat on its face when it comes to writing the sounds of other languages. Useless.

Yet so many Koreans believe the lie that it can write any sound of any language. Leading the Korean government to pay for Korean teachers who are sent to isolated tribes in Africa to teach them Hangeul because they have no writing script of their own. I watched the documentary on Arirang. Can you imagine how pleased those tribespeople will be when they realise they learned to write in an obscure script from a small corner of North East Asia!!

[SuperFly]

[KoreanAmbition]

I laughed out loud a few times at your story.


If I were you, I'd start coming up with a lot tougher homework and testing.


You can't tell them they're wrong...
You can't beat them cause we're not Korean...
They're probably rich so financially you can't mess with them...
You have to do everything they say...

But dammit, you're the teacher...


FAIL THEIR FCKING ASSES

[ceesgetdegrees]

I got in trouble from my cow of a supervisor at a hagwon i worked at for pointing out to a high school girl that korean is pretty much only spoken in korea apart from a few scatterings of immigrants around the world. The conversation went something like this

Her-"why did you tell .... that noone speaks korean out of korea?"

Me- "well, because it's true and at 16/17 years old she should probably know the truth"

Her-"well you disrespected korea, we are very proud, you must apologise, and the children don't like you, not only the high school kids but also all the other children, and you are too fat, and why haven't you come to my church yet?"

Me *inner rage building.........*

[ceesgetdegrees]

[komerican]

This is a vicious story. Although exaggeration is a valid technique in humor comparing Korean children to Nazis is malicious and evil.

Humor in the West is often like this now, at its base vicious and full of hate.

There is much irony in the OP. The OP is just as chauvinistic as the children he is lampooning, except of course he's the teacher!

Western education is just as nationalistic and chauvinistic about European achievements, cherry picking the last two hundred years while ignoring the rest of human history.

It was a western country that carted off millions women and children into boxcars and then gassed them. First telling them lies about how they will be sent to a better place.

What's next, comparing ajumas to the waffen SS? Koreans to apes in the movie Planet of the Apes? Oh wait, you folks already do that.

Western humor, at least on message boards, has hit a new low with this one.

[it's full of stars]

There is much irony in the OP.

Read like Yoda you do.

[PRagic]

It does have some humor in it, but I had to stop reading and find the face to the voice in order to make it work.

For this to work, it has to be the starting point. As written, the narrator must be male and directly out of university, and they could not have been a good student; I'm thinking more pints than A pluses. As they stay in Korea a bit and learn more, they mature.

[GrowlingMadScientist]