Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Chris.Quigley]

What are the dumbest things you have said to Koreans while living in Korea?

Me (to my students): "Does the word Taeguki (the Korean flag) sound cute to you guys? It sounds cute to me." (They were not happy...)

Me (to my co-teacher): "I don't really like Confucius very much, I don't think it's a good idea to base an entire culture on his teachings, he taught that it was okay to kill someone or lie if your parents told you to." Nationalism X1000 was the reaction.

Me (to my students, the topic was economics): "Where I come from the average salary is $60,000 and in Korea its only $20,000." I was trying to explain the idea of purchasing power... Saying that $20,000 in Korea goes much further than it would back home. However, they didn't take it that way...

I know, these are pretty weak, but I felt pretty dumb after saying them. So, what have you said that you regret? Think was funny?

[Stalin84]

I don't think any of those are enough to lose sleep over. I'm the kind of person that says the wrong thing at the wrong time so I've made much worse blunders than that. I guess I'm too honest?

1.) I had a student named "Kim Jong Il." I was informed about his name during class. I said: "uh oh, maybe he has a nuclear bomb in his bookbag!" Everyone seemed kind of offended and the reaction was "ugh..."

2.) A co-teacher and I got on the subject of relationships. They were asking me why I wasn't chasing Korean girls around and didn't have a Korean girlfriend at the time. I told them I didn't care where the girl was from, just so long as we were a good match.

She said: "but many foreigners think Korean girls are more beautiful and exotic than Western girls." I agreed and added: "yes, but I'm looking for an actual relationship and don't want to date a Korean girl because they cheat more often, have a Korean boyfriend on the side and will never tell their parents that I exist so the relationship will die off when she discovers that I'm not all that interesting after all." She understood where I was coming from but looked pissed because she thought I meant all Korean girls were like that. I was bitter after dating a girl that was like that and seeing it happen to a number of my friends.

3.) I was explaining some verbs to Grade 2s in my first month in Korea. I decided to draw a picture of a ramp, I chose a student in class and drew him on a bicycle at the top of the ramp, then I drew some water at the bottom of the ramp and filled it with sharks. I explained how he went down the ramp, up in the air and down again into shark-infested water. I was enjoying myself so much that I didn't notice the student bawling his eyes out.

4.) I couldn't stop laughing at the student whose Korean name was "Pak Yu Ho" when I saw it on the attendance sheet, spelled just like that in English. My students only got the "Pak Yu" connection but after I explained the "Ho" in the gentlest terms I could muster, they thought it was doubly hilarious. I'm pretty sure that little Pak Yu Ho is still pissed off at me.

[brickabrack]

"3.) I was explaining some verbs to Grade 2s in my first month in Korea. I decided to draw a picture of a ramp, I chose a student in class and drew him on a bicycle at the top of the ramp, then I drew some water at the bottom of the ramp and filled it with sharks. I explained how he went down the ramp, up in the air and down again into shark-infested water. I was enjoying myself so much that I didn't notice the student bawling his eyes out. "

That made my morning.

[Who's Your Daddy?]

[Mariella713]

The dumbest thing I can recall myself saying is to some guy I was seeing last year. He'd just got off the phone to his friend & I said "wow - you're so good at speaking Korean!" He replied "Well...I am Korean..."

[Chris.Quigley]

That last one sounds more like something stupid Koreans say to us...

[decolyon]

1 - At the last school I taught at, when we wrote report cards, we graded each student's specific area with a 1, 2, 3, or 4. 1 being terrible, 4 awesome. I was then informed by my Korean co-teacher that we will not be giving out any 1's or 2's regardless of the student's performance. I said this is stupid. It benefits the kid to know where he/she is failing so they can try to work on that a bit more. I reiterated how dumb I thought the idea was of just handing out grades the kids didn't earn.

I was then informed by another teacher that it was my co-teacher who had the idea of not giving out 1's or 2's and she fought hard for it in the last Korean teacher only meeting. I basically called her stupid to her face. But she was kind enough not to react to that and let me rant.


2 - After a long night of drinking and discussing political topics with my Canadian friends (as often happens) I said jokingly that America could invade and conquer Canada over the weekend with our National Guard. I was drunk, it was offensive, and I lost a lot of respect from my Canadian friends for that one. Wish I hadn't had said that one.

3 - A 4th grader of mine gave me a birthday card and present one year. In the card she said she thought I was handsome. When I read this to my Korean co-teacher, I celebrated a little bit on the "handsome" part. She interpreted it as me going "yay! I'm considered attractive by a 10 year old!" I got pervy looks the rest of that year.

4 - I have a sarcastic nature at times. While joking with some other waegookins in the teachers room (foreigners tend to get when I'm being sarcastic... Koreans, not so much) on the topic of younger girls, I simply repeated a few jokes I heard once. "You know the best part of dating high school girls?.... You keep getting older, but they stay the same age"..... "When cherries are ripe, they're ready for plucking. When girls are 16 they're ready for....." All the Korean teachers were appalled. It took some explaining by the whole group that I didn't mean any of that, it's just what in the west is called absurd humor.

5 - I was really late to class one day. Well 10 mins, but that's really late for me. Anyways, my students were all sitting and waiting on my as I rushed in and through all my crap on the desk. It was debate class day and they needed a topic to write about. Hastily I came up with the first thing that hit my head that was in the news recently "Ok guys, write about 'Dokdo is Korean land' and then change and write 'Dokdo belongs to Japan'". I've never gotten more dirty looks in my life. After about 5 seconds of the most uncomfortable silence I've ever felt, I quickly changed it to "Students should/should not have homework."

[tukmax]

[Cedar]

About three months into my Korean life (when my Korean was still in it's infancy) I was in a martial arts class and i KNEW what the teacher wanted me to do my hip joints were completely inflamed from the unfamiliar motion (and I wasn't able to do the kick right as a result). So I asked a Korean co-teacher to teach me the Korean sentence "My hip joints are really inflamed." and you know how they equate hip with butt? Back then I didn't know that. And he says "you don't need joint, it'll be understood" because i already knew 관절 was joint. So I went and told my instructor "My butt really hurts" and repeated it to other people, too, so they knew why i was sort of hobbling. I can only hope they were willing to take it in good faith that I wasn't a total freak, just not good at Korean yet

[chrisassd]

My Korean is also still getting off the ground. I saw a guy with a really nice dog at a festival recently and whilst stroking it tried to think of the word for 'I like' but instead of remembering 'jowaio', what came into my head and out of my mouth was 'machisaeyo' whist pointing and grinning at the dog.

[UknowsI]

Do not mention that it is easier for westerner people to understand the location of "The Sea of Japan" than "The East Sea" even if your home country is located next to a different "The East Sea". Actually, don't even mention that "The East Sea of Korea" would be an acceptable name, just go with "The East Sea" as the correct answer.

[cj1976]

I once asked a bartender for 오줌 (oh-jum)instead of 얼음 (ol-eum).

[machoman]

i used to ride my bike on the sidewalk and after hearing my students yell "yah" all the time, i thought it meant like a casual, friendly "hey." so i'd yell yah to everyone who was in front of me to move out of the way, ajosshi and ajumma included. and the thing is, i'm asian, so i could be mistaken for a korean. imagine how rude they thought i was.

[Globutron]

The worst I can think of was when we were talking about fashion, and Adidas came up, and suddenly I was like

'Oh, you know what ADIDAS stands for?' and started writing on the board 'All day I dream about ....' and stopped there when I actually realised what I was doing. Unfortunately one of the kids figured the last word out and burst into laughter and told everyone and then went around the school going 'all day i dream about...'

I figured if anyone was to ask, I could just say 'eh? No I meant SPORT. It's ADIDAS, afterall'.

But that moment of idiocy got me a bit uncomfortable for a night.

[machoman]