This is quite embarassing. For the second or third time (in about 2 weeks) a HELL Money (Korean phonetics for grandmother, but emphasis simply must be placed on the first sibilants!)blustered through the school, arms waving and lips flapping and spitting. I am the culprit, the bad guy. According to her I have beaten up her grandson, more specifically kicked him in his groin, which is now pussy and infected. She even waved around a doctor's certificate, which has a sum of money prominently displayed on it (W43 000). Can you imagine my alarm?
I found this a bit farfetched, so I made a photocopy of the document, intending to get it translated, maybe even show it to my doctor. I'm guessing she is bluffing, maybe he has a urinary tract infection or something. If I have touched him on his finger, and that's caused him to sprout boils or malignant tumors, I'll be happy to reimburse him. I dunno, somehow I don't buy this thing. I think she perhaps has a bone to pick with stupid white men, or she thinks I am focussing my rascism on her grandson. It feels pretty damned rascist to me, and hysterical. I've taught for 3 years in Korea, and this is probably the most bizarre accusation from a parent ever!
Anyway, she came into the staff room, started drinking something from a carton (actually that stuff is for us teachers, so it was quite a cheeky move), and waving her arms around. Every time I offered something she spat something at me. I left to teach and when I returned the copy I'd made of her precious document had mysteriously vanished.
Is this laughable or is this a terminal situation at a hagwon that is increasingly appearing to be sparing the rod,spoiling the children and killing thousands of extra follicles on an already very bald teacher.
I'm not someone who advocates corporal punishment. Especially not for girls. For boys you can often get them to behave by subjecting them to embarassment. My English teacher simply called us forward, and bumped a big book on our heads. A harmless activity, but one calculated to exact a measure of humiliation.
I have been using a mixture of very fast pushups, or an exaggerated amount of slow pushups (combined with standing up) to bring about discipline. One of the teachers handed me a ruler, and this has had some success. Be Kwaai Yit - 3 hard strokes.
Obviously Peter, the descendent of one particularly cantankerous Hellmoney, is now even cheekier than ever (he's got her in his pocket, and she's a sixshooter, after all). He's quite a smart kid. Not that smart though, because a smart kid would know not to do ego-armwrestling with his teacher. That's what this seems to amount to. I'm not really interested. But it bothers me that time is wasted focussing on a few brats, when most of the kids are eager to study and get on with it. His writing is really untidy, and when other students are doing pushups, he jumps up and co0mes to the front and tells them how to do them. If I ask him to do my bidding he says, "Why?" Or "No." So when I try to separate him from the other musketeers, I ask them to sit somewhere else because he won't move. You might suggest that I be even more strict with him, with an attitude like this, but I would rather not touch the boy at all. I might get some sexually transmitted disease judging from the puss report that I almost managed to get a copy of...
I wonder if the Hellmoney will be back tomorrow? I imagine she thinks I am 'bad' and that her grandchild is the incarnation of the angel Gabriel. I'm going to take my digital vifeo camera and catch the lad being his exuberantly devilish self. If he pulls off a Mr Hyde, then it proves a point in class (in situ), and if not, well then I have evidence. Either way, it is an interesting angle.
I would also like to apologise for my real or imagined mistake, to the Hellmoney. That way I am sure Peter will have an even bigger ego in class, and I can send my own version of Teacher Survivor (Korea) to CBS.
On the overall subject of hypochondria, I'd like to offer a few observations. A few swallows don't make a summer, but I would have thought in the presence of strangers, especially foreigners, if I was a sissy or a hypochondriac I'd try to hide that fact away. I wouldn't try to score points or sympathy from it.
As I say, I may be off on a tangent on this one, but I have seen some ordinarily tough men and boys (always in this order, and never the fairer sex) in tears and agony when it seems...well...an act.
I saw a guy fall off his bike in a triathlon and just lie there. I'm sure it was painful, but he didn't lose consciousness. I'm sure his pride was the worst hit, but he was lying in the road and lots of bikes were whizzing past. I was already on my last lap of the run, and I stopped to drag him and his bike off the road to prevent a pile up. The whole time the guy seemed to be pretending to be mute and paralysed with pain.
There was also a sports contest where it boiled down to a strong Korean guy and a western guy, very tough and kind've all about being tough. They did a Korean wrestling thing and the western guy managed, not without some effort, to get his counterpart on the ground. It was a hard knock, and you could hear he was winded, but immediately after, the grounded Korean lay there, writhing in agony, drawing a crowd and a lot of extra attention. I would guess if he was walking alone on a mountain, and had fallen the same distance, he would have immediately gotten up, brushed himself off and been fine. So I thought this was very unsportsmanlike.
I see it with my students too. I'm sure most teachers have. I just wonder whether it's not more prevalent here, in this country. Is it? Maybe not?
Well, there are a few more well publicised examples.
One involves the skater Kim Dong Sung and Anton Ohno. There was a lot of protesting and fussing after the medal was awarded controversially to the American. Technically the American deserved to win, but practically, it looked like the Korean deserved to win. It looked like he deserved to win. I saw the slow motion footage on TV and it's undeniable that the Korean deviated (very little) from his line. But he did deviate. It's tragic that he did, because had he just kept to his line I am sure he would have one. Ohno bluffed, and the Korean called it, and that cost him a medal. The Koreans would have none of it, and launched protests ad naseum. Did the judges change their minds? No. I still have a picture of an infuriated skater, hands on hips, flag on the ground. It's not a good example for a fanbase.
A more recent example is a gymnast who actually deserved a gold medal, and it was mistakenly awarded to an American (again). After checking the numbers, they saw the the Korean had actually earned half a point or something more. I was disappointed to hear that the American did not give his medal to the Korean. He felt he had earned it, I suppose, and obviously a medal confers (whichever country you're in) a certain dollar reward).
So the Koreans had a special gold medal made, and awarded it to the 'real' gold medalist. Doubtless most other countries would have done the same thing.
Life though doesn't swing back, and award second gold medals. You get married, get cancer, have a child. You try to make the best of your situation. No guardian angel flys overhead, presses pause, and makes everything good.
I'm not quite sure how to deal with the hypochondria in my 7:00pm classroom. Any suggestions? Ignorance is bliss?
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