Korean Job Discussion Forums

[blaseblasphemener]

Tell me if this has happened to you. If it hasn't, then I don't care to hear your smart-alecky opinion, are we clear?

I've asked several Koreans, mainly souless, desperate ajumas, what they would do with the money if they won the lottery, say, a million bucks. I know, it's a lame question, but if I had good questions, I wouldn't be teaching where I'm teaching, got it?

Anyway, without exception, these paragons of virtue always reply with blah, blah, blah...and I would give a bunch of it to charity!? I call bull-s h i t. I think Koreans can safely be called amongst the least charitable peoples on the planet. I mean, the whole notion of giving money to a stranger ie. a nobody, seems to run counter to the whole ethos of this backwater peninsula.

This also reminds me of one of my grade 5 boys diaries, where he noted that his friends were missing their teachers during vacations. What a bunch of disingenuous buggers. ahhh, I feel much better now, that was cathartic.

("If you hate Koreans so much, why did you come to Korea?" says Dave's ESL Cafe Board Monitor.

"But DESL CBM, I didn't mean anything by it, I just thought Korea ajumas are horribly disenguous, refuse to be honest about their feelings, and appear to lack a soul in many cases. I don't hate all Koreans, just most ajumas and ajoshis," explains BB.

"I'm telling teacher!" exclaims DESLCBM.

"I'll meet you on the playground. Your dead if you say anything!" BB says.

The End.

[Corporal]

I'm not going to argue that ajumas aren't soulless people, but it IS worth noting that people often go for the easy answer when not speaking in their native language. So perhaps you might consider that they happen to know the phrase "I'd give it to charity" as opposed to "I'd spend most of it on the shopping channel, getting that new Mickey Mouse clothing collection, a few of those bodyshaping machines, a green tea liquid milkshake diet program thingy for me and all my aunts..."

This is also why your middle school boys reply "Play computer games" when you ask them what they did yesterday.

Of course, if you're going to tell me that these inquiries and responses were conducted in Korean, that throws my whole theory out the window.

[vlcupper]

[blaseblasphemener]

Why should I learn Korean? Wouldn't it detract from my stated goal of bringing English to the fruited minds of this fair land? And the last ajumma who gave me the charity-song-n-dance had stated in an earlier class that her goal was to be a million soon. So she was putting all of her focus into that. Well, she did mention that she noticed her neighbor in the next building across was moving her plant around everyday, out of boredom. I didn't want to point out to her that her noticing that said something about her spicy daily routine.

[JongnoGuru]

Hey, ajumas aren't the only ones doing the Charity Shuck & Jive.

If you've lived here long enough, some annoying uni student (or annoying parent or sibling of a uni student) is going to chase you down and beg, bribe, or bamboozle you into "reviewing" their friggin' admissions essays for foreign grad school.

When I worked for Korean companies, I'd get these loathsome, high-pressured "requests" fairly frequently, though I only got suckered in maybe five times. I wasn't about to rewrite the damned things (though God knows that's what they needed) -- I offered only to read them over to confirm that the student had understood & adequately answered the questions. The only feedback from me would be verbal.

There's always one essay question about the student's future goals after earning their MBA or what have you. Every applicant made a grandiose promise of how they would feed the hungry, shoe the shoeless, clothe the, um... naked people, and do all sorts of wonderfully charitable things with the millions they were sure to make. Some said they'd give _everything_ they earned, or half -- not one applicant promised less than half their income to charity.

You can imagine what a painful, crashing bore it was to read those essays, and not so much for the kimchi-fied English, but for the astounding level of pride & BS. What made it slightly less brutal were the occasional zingers that I'll never forget, like:

The one guy who plans to donate half of his income to charity, half to his dear parents... "and live on the rest"! (yep ) I assume he plans to underreport his actual income, then.

And the other fellow (I still shake my head when I think about him) who promised to give half of his income for life to a worthy charity. Higher education, specifically. In fact, to the very school he was applying to!! He had several sets of essays he'd prepared for different universities' graduate schools, and he promised the same largesse to each one of them.

Now what's up with that? I mean, does this BS just come natural? Or have they all been coached -- identically, horrendously coached -- as to what will make a favourable impression on the average American grad school admissions board?

[Hapkido-In]

I used to teach a class of ajumas and this question came up as a discussion topic.

Most of them answered that they'd use the money to buy real estate and then rent it to make more money.

But a few of them said they would give a little to charity. I knew the class pretty well and would say that they were being honest.

[rothkowitz]

Just once I wish a student would say

"I'm going to drink myself into an early grave and marry five times teacher.....and you?"

[ajuma]

Ah! This question is addressed to me!!

What would I do? Buy a better car, better apartment, travel to great places during my vacations, and save the rest for my eventual retirement!! As they say "Charity begins at home!"

[Sina qua non]

Now, if I had a million dollars?

I'd put it all in 30 year U.S. government debt at 5% interest and bring in just over $4,000 per month, every month, for thirty years, guaranteed.

And I'd keep my day job, but worry much less about day to day responsibilities.

Until then, I'll just keep buying my lottery tickets.

I realize my answer wasn't the OP's intention with this thread, but what the heck?