Korean Job Discussion Forums

[passport220]

Any cultural issues with having students do a palm reading?

I want to create an exercise with the students working in pairs doing a palm reading to teach and practice using the future tense. I would make up and assign some predictive phrases to assign to lines on the hand. I have no belief in palm reading and would tell the students at the end it was all made up for fun and to get them talking in pairs. Are there any Korean cultural issues with palm reading?

[wylies99]

Tell them you want them to read the bumps on each other's heads, and when they say "What bumps?" , hit them on the head with a baseball bat, ala the "Three Stooges". Just kidding.


If they are Christians, their families may have a problem with this.

[oneofthesarahs]

I don't imagine that it would be a big deal. I've actually had three Koreans (two students) read my palm on independent occasions. Apparently I am quite popular, and will someday be rich.

[wylies99]

I should have said if they are GENUINE Christians. We all know how many phony Christians there are all over Korea.

[gypsyfish]

I do magic - pen up the nose, disappearing coin found in the ear, close up stuff - and I usually do a little in class to establish rapport and get students interested.

I had a Korean student who was a Christian missionary in Africa, had returned to Korea to study English, and thought the pen up the nose trick was a hoot. Vanish man won, hilarious. Rubber pencil, comical.

But when I did my best mind reading trick, she sobered up real quickly and said, "That's magic."

With a flourish, I said, "That's right!"

She said, "I'm a Christian. I don't like magic."

I quickly explained that it, like the others, was a trick, but she wouldn't accept it. This was when I teaching in a hagwon and she hated me - the spawn of Satan - the entire month of the class. I have never lost a student's trust so quickly or permanently, even though I told her I wouldn't do any more magic in class.

Don't let this stop you from using the palmistry activity - I've been using the same shtick for more than ten years and, as far as I know, that's the only time a student didn't like it.

That said, I think it's incumbent on teachers not to present things like palmistry, astrology, ghosts, and such as "real".

[Bramble]

Ghosts aren't real?

[spliff]

Good activity...crystal ball. Cultural issues, frankly don't see how that fits into the lesson.

[Young FRANKenstein]