Hansel And Gretel

In case you're ever left doubting the effectiveness of your lesson plans, just ask your students:

"What's the weather today?"

If they answer, "It's Friday!" you know.

If it's Monday, well, you can be certain.

You'd think this answer, so early on a Monday morning, would cause me to lose all hope in my students. But I persevere, knowing they'll catch up. Because in this country, hard work and long hours is the status quo.

Think about the US and how, at the end of the day, school buses take students home.

In Korea, they take students to other schools.

So each day at 2:30, the bell rings and children run excitedly to the buses like little Hansels and Gretels running ignorantly into the oven.

"There's no candy in the bus! But there's no candy in the..."

Slam. Lock.

Their work ethic is ineffable. The only way it could be given proper justice is if it were given a rhyme scheme and set to the tune of "I'm a Woman."

Well I get up at 8 and start the day by studying before class. I study Korean, science and history. And then I study math. I do my homework 'til midnight and then play computer games 'till I win. I wake up at 8 and wash my face and then start all over again. (jazz fingers) 'Cause I'm Korean. K.O.R.E.A.N.

...Whatever. I thought it was funny.

So in the midst of breaking up a fight one day, I come upon a complaint that I feel is uniquely Korean:

"Stop fighting!" I say. "Why did you hit her?!"

"I said I already know this and I want to learn something more. So she called me a jackass and hit me."

Ah, the old I-want-to-learn-more complaint.

My co-teacher interjects. "You want to learn more?"

Uh-oh.

"Yes."

"Something different?"

"Yes."

"Something new?"

I sense a trap Hansel, I sense a trap...

"Yes."

She smiles.

"Then you can learn consideration."

How I Met My Spouse

Koreans in general meet each other on blind dates set up through friends. In Busan, a popular first date spot is a restaurant called, and I can't make this shit up, Guess Who-- a name so appropriate, it belongs in the same category with Alexis' autograph from the famous track star, I-Perfection.

"Yah, yah, yah. We just called him Harris."

My good friend Marc recently wrote me on the topic of his upcoming blind date, in which his skepticism clearly outweighs his excitement:

"It's like going to the thrift store to find the perfect pair of underwear. Or something."

But when you ask most Korean couples how they met, they usually say it was this way: A friend set them up with someone he or she knows. Pictures were exchanged. They said nae or annio.

Which gives me an idea-- today's subject for my adult conversation class: how you met your spouse; sure to spark interesting dialogue where we branch off into different topics, filling the entire class period; all the while leaving me to plan nothing more than:

"How did you meet your spouse?"

"Blind date."

"Blind date."

"Blind date."

"Same."

Foiled again!

But now I'm curious. Searching for a more interesting story, I probe a happy expat couple I know here.

"How did you two meet in Korea?"

"We met at a bar and had sex. Same as most expats."

Drinking On The Job

You have to respect a country where old women take shots of soju with every other bite of food at dinner. Soju, by the way, tastes and feels like watered-down vodka.

I went out with my co-workers the other night and watched a 63-year-old Korean woman slowly develope eyelids.

Respect.

On the subject of drinking and work my brother, whose an expert at the former and amateur at the latter, has this to say:

"They told me at work. Oh, this is embarrassing. They told me not to come into work sober anymore."

This is unsurprising from the man whose current facebook status is "take me out to the curb... I'm trashed." (spelled suspiciously accurately)

But getting trashed is something that happens more often than you might expect in this country of overachievers and amatuer professionals. In Korea, the more you drink, the better you're thought to be at your job. Unless you're a young woman. Then you're a lush.

If you are a man, after work you are pretty much required to go out with your co-workers and drink. And not just a simple cocktail to enjoy while complaining about your other co-workers. No, you get trashed-- taken to the curb-- drinking everything from beer to soju to beer mixed with soju to CABOOMS! as my boyfriend so excitedly revealed me.

Car bombs he meant to say.

Driven to the curb.

For these business outings, I'm told one can always opt out, but will run the risk of being seen as a condemning jerk, risking even more the possibility of ever being promoted. And so, one of my earliest lessons on Korean culture was as follows: If your boss offers you a drink. Drink it.

Check. And check.

So I think back to the United States. Have I been gone so long? Is this how it is at home?

I reminisce on scenes from the summer my college friends came home. I wanted to skip work to drink with them and so, doing the only logical thing, I called up my boss and feigned a voice paralized by novacaine.

"I jussss wen to da denis and I ha too much nodacin in ma mout to come to wuh."

"Okay," my boss says. "I'll see you Wednesday."

"Okay! Thanks!" I say excitedly. "See you then!"

And I didn't have to work Wednesday either because it turns out if you're lieing about being paralyzed by novacaine, you can't articulate your excitement when you realize you've been let off the hook because you lied about being paralyzed by novacaine.

No. No, I remember now. Wanting to drink, drinking, or having drank the night before always made me worse at my job.

But, ah! I'm struck by a novel concept: What if you don't like to drink? And so I pause our walk and throw my friend the curve ball.

"But what if your boss doesn't like to drink and therefore doesn't require you to go out after work?"

"If that were the case," he says, "he wouldn't be my boss."

Beach, Bitch, Sit, Shit

So I'm teaching the lesson on how to order food in English. Key sentences: I'm hungry. Can I have some..?

Easy right? But where was the little birdy to tell me not to include a picture of a dog with anything edible in a country where dogs are something edible?

Oh. I was supposed to know that.

Oops.

I pull up a picture of an old woman scowling at a begging dog as she eats ice-cream. Cue the class in unison:

"I'm hungry! Can I have some dog?"

Ah, can I have some dog. I'll file that one away under things I never thought I would experience in a classroom, right after all the other things I never thought I would experience in a classroom:

"No, not shitty. City. Sssssssssity."

This dog experience is second only to the time my co-teacher said to me: "Good Morning, Anne! Should I teach the difference between beach and bitch?"

What? Twenty minutes prior I was searching for berryholic yogurt. Now I'm searching for a senario where beach and bitch could fall into a context where they run the risk of being misinterpreted.

I think of an ill-informed Korean kid: "Where can I find a phat beach?" Slap.

I think of my co-teacher saying, "One, two, three, look at me. Quiet please. Okay, this is a bitch. Bitch. This is a beach. Beach. Different. Understand?"

Ah, the sheer entertainment. I'm tempted. I want to say yes. I want to shout yes. YES. YES! I THINK YOU SHOULD TEACH THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BEACH AND BITCH!!!

"Anne! What do you think?"

"No."-- restraint making its brief cameo into my life. "Damnit, I don't think it's neccessary."

But apparently here is where a Siegert missed a golden opportunity to be innappropriate-- and we never miss those!

Apparently-- a friend informs me-- fowl mouthed Korean boys grow up to be-- yes-- fowl mouthed Korean men. She tells me of her latest date with one:

"I need to shit," he says.

She inquires further, hoping she's heard wrong. "What?"

"I really need to SHIT." Now he's looking around. "Do you see a good place to shit?"

"Wait, you need to what?"

Pantomiming with a squat he says, "Shit."

She smiles nervously, turning her head to the side. I hope he's saying 'sit' wrong and not 'shit' right. "I don't see a place to..."

"Ah, let's shit," he says, pointing to a bench.

And thus, relief so tangible you can shit on it: he was saying 'sit' wrong.

Monday morning rolls around and I say, "Good Morning, Seosaegneem. Should I teach the difference between shit and sit?"

Single in Seoul

So... yesterday was Black Day in Korea. No, Alexis, you didn't miss the Sistas&Brothas of Seoul's annual throw down. And no, it's not the day after Thanksgiving where Koreans buy a bunch of shit.

Instead, Black Day marks the tragedy of being alone and single on Black Day in Korea-- a country, apparently where they take their self-loathing seriously.They mourn the death of their sex lives by wearing black clothes and eating black food.

I'm going to repeat that because it bears repeating. They eat black food.

This is a day where people are supposed to celebrate something they're unhappy about. As Lewis Black would say: don't think about that too hard or blood might shoot out your nose! It boggles my mind to think of how this tradition got started.

Hey, you-- single, lonely person, incapable of attracting the opposite sex-- you have nobody. Here's some R.E.M, track number 4-- "Everybody Hurts." Put on this black shirt. And here's some black shit. Eat your feelings.


My co-teacher excitedly holds up her new little black daily planner.

"Nice," I say. "Where'd you get it?"

"Yesterday, the bookstore was giving them out for free if you wear black."

"But you weren't wearing black. Anyways, you have a boyfriend."

"I know. I told him 'wait in corner.' I take my camera. It's black."

I scold her for stealing from the bitter and self-loathing. But I guess it's just as well. Giving out little black books to self-loathing singles is just a mean joke.