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December 28, 2005 >> MEGAPUZZLE 2006Today didn't really feel like it should be a school day. It felt like the cusp of vacationtime. It felt like the edge of freedom. It felt like a day where children should do wordsearches while I stared at the clock. And it was So. The wordsearches were very difficult, specifically designed to be impossible for a normal child to complete during the span of a single 40-minute class.
I call these wordsearches the Mega Puzzle and have an accompanying song to lull the kids into its hypnotic grasp: MEGA PUZZLE mega puzzle MEGA PUZZLE mega puzzle... when the bell rung the kids all stumbled out of my room, clutching their Mega Puzzles to their hearts and gazing around at the 'World Beyond The MEGA PUZZLE' with fearful eyes. They no longer wanted to live in a place where hidden words can't be found both forwards, backwards and diagonally. As they left, I offered some existential advice I learnt from the Matrix: "The Mega Puzzle has you, bitches!" They needed to know.
I also taught two of the older kids to play poker and Christina kicked our asses at five-card draw. She even meticulously copied down the hierarchy of poker hands that I sketched on the whiteboard. I feel sad that I was beaten by a 12 year old girl, but happy knowing that I've turned her into a future gambling addict. Teaching is an egomaniacal mindfuck and eventually I will pay a terrible price for ruining so many futures.
It's clearly been a busy day. Tomorrow morning we leave for the socialist perils of China. See you in the year 2006!
Posted by Chris at 07:46 AM >> Commentations (2) | Permalink
December 26, 2005 >> Jessica Presiding
This morning Jessica came to school in a lime-green pleather cape that Santa left her for Christmas. When Sam asked her why, she just shrugged - Jessica doesn't seem to think you need a reason to dress like a medieval knight. She's probably right. This afternoon I'm going to work in a loincloth and beaver pelt, smeared in chocolate sauce and kimchi juice. Just because.
Since I talk about Jessica so much, I thought you might want to actually see what she looks like. Jessica's the one who resembles a dour little Napoleon. I was able to pique her interest for a brief publicity photo, which is a lie because she was clearly not interested. She was in the middle of slaying some vile evildoers or rabid porcupines or Japanese robots or something in the hallway, and I was impudent enough to impede her quest. Still, one advantage of being a teacher is that you can force children to pose for pictures. Wait... that sounds gross. Nevermind. There are no advantages to being a teacher.
We're in the middle of a gully right now, locked between Christmas and New Year's and mostly just phoning in our final classes before the holidays start on Thursday. Every hagwon has a different holiday schedule - some are cushy and some are abysmal. I've been told by several other foreigners that I should feel lucky for getting three full days off for New Year's. This is, in general, a poor year to be a lazy teacher in Korea: Christmas was on Sunday (one day lost); Chusok was on a Sunday (two days lost). We probably lost other days too, but I'm too lazy to continue thinking about this list. I've also been too lazy to start thinking about China and important related things like Survival Tactics and Can I, Too, Hold Back The Tanks At Tiananmen Square With Just One Hand and What Am I Going To Wear To The Opera?
I have postcards - postcards of all variety but only one basic shape. They're shaped like postcards. However, I do not have addresses. All you friends and enemies out there, you exist in my mind and heart but as far as tangible geography is concerned, I don't know where the fuck you're at. I was never very good with spacial physics. So email me with directions to your Earth-home if you want a postcard of NOBLE, GLORIOUS SEOUL and I will gladly comply (but not too soon - gotta wait long enough to make it a surprise again!)
Christmas wasn't really Christmas. I don't know what it was. It was stuffing faces with Chad and Jen and UNLIMITED BOOZE THAT YOU CAN SHADILY CRAM INTO YOUR BACKPACKS. It was Belinda and Dook winning the Rocky Mountain Tavern kissing contest, rolling around on top of each other behind the bar rail. It was trying to play wingman with two girls at once and huffily being told in a cab: "No, no. Not two. No both. You have choose!" Uh... yes. The night was strange but fun, and full of Shockers:
Posted by Chris at 11:43 PM >> Commentations (1) | Permalink
December 24, 2005 >> 'Tis the Season
So here we are on the eve, and what can I possibly say about Christmas in Korea?
It's commercial but nowhere near as manufactured as our Plastic Christmas back home. It's getting there, year by year, but from what I can tell the spirit hasn't forced its way into enough hearts and souls just yet. Christmas just isn't the raving End-All-And-Be-All of life that we've gotten so used to back in Canada. I asked the Korean teachers what they're doing on Christmas Day and the convoluted answers mostly boiled down to "nothing", sometimes punctuated with "I'm going to church". No big dinners, no family unwrapping frenzy in the morning. No basement orgy. The Budda still battles for his share in Korea.
Still, I went to COEX - a giganticized mall - last weekend and the stores were ablaze in Christmas glory. People were buying oversized Disney dolls and scarves and, strangely enough, an entire store was dedicated to a guy with poo on his head. I didn't buy anything there.
In the oversized causeways, people took pictures of each other beneath mall decorations. Outside, people took pictures of each other in front of a large tree. Afterwards they slipped on the ice, unused to the absence of friction. we sat on a bench and laughed. I've noticed that most Koreans only take photos of uninteresting things, plotted frames of planned smiles and carefully chosen backdrops.
At school we had the usual kindergarten holiday fare - parents and showmanship and singing. I was Clara's surrogate father for a while - her mom couldn't make it to the party - and she sat on my lap tweeting happily while the other kids and their moms threw balls at a terrifying snowman target. The snowman's fearsome visage was partly due to the fact that it was formerly a Jack-O-Lantern target and had received a frantic facelift for Christmas only that morning. Clara boldly threw her ball down the Snow Lantern's throat to win the game for the childrens' side and I loved her for it.
The former Billy Teacher (he's still Billy but no longer Teacher) made a one-time appearance as Santa Claus. I have no idea how the kids didn't recognize him with his distinctive voice - "Roight then, have you been a good boi-ee?" - but then again, kindergartners will choose magic over logic every time. Billy dispensed the presents and the children with dolls played quietly, the children with diaries sat and wrote in them, and the children with Power-Swords beat each other heartily. I ate potluck and tried to reassure Jessica's mother that it was perfectly okay that she wanted to be a boy and was currently stabbing Eddie in the back of the head with her sword. Back in Canada, I said, she would be Normal.
In the afternoon we had Quiz Shows. I ran the Powerpoint and amused myself by chucking candy at kids' heads. Sam taunted the fat children by stuffing empty wrappers full of more empty wrappers and then enlisting other kids to unwittingly deliver the goods. Christmas is a time for cruelty and self-indulgence.
The afternoon kids sang their songs too. Some classes were well-choreographed with dancing. Some were not. I clapped for them all because it takes balls to sing 'White Christmas' in front of your peers when you don't know any of the words.
And so another holiday season has come and gone at Herald, and now it's time to get down to the real Christmas. In the geographical absence of family it's gotta be somewhere inside friends, new and old, and I plan on tearing out hearts all night until I find Christmas in your ventricles.
Merry Christmas to the homeland! I miss you all, and I'm only just getting started.
Posted by Chris at 12:05 AM >> Commentations (0) | Permalink
December 23, 2005 >> What's on TV...
... besides kickboxing and Starcraft? Dubious lessons in English and complacent citizenry.
Learn how to say "What-ever" and obey the ironclad hierarchy of Korean authority at the same time!
Posted by Chris at 10:47 PM >> Commentations (0) | Permalink
>> Ring Ring Ring
I swore I would never own a cell phone, but this week I inherited Mike's sister Nicky's, as she was flung forcefully from the country for teaching illegally. I figure that if I am going to, one day, theorize and speculate about the terrifying effects of Instant Messaging on our culture, I should experience the full gamut - this is the only half-baked reasoning that lets me maintain my anti-cell phone stance with any kind of sincerity. Experimentation. Testing the waters. Making love to technology... sweet, sadomasochistic love.
Since my wonderful acquisition, I have received six text messages. Three of them have been sent by Nicky's friends, wishing her a safe flight home. Two of them were from the Korean waitress at the Pirate Bar, calling me habo (stupid) with those crazy winking smiley faces that we all love to hate. The last one was from Mike: "u r gay".
I can already tell that I'm shifting paradigms here; pushing the boundaries of communication along with the rest of the human race. I carry the future in my pocket.
Posted by Chris at 12:41 PM >> Commentations (1) | Permalink
December 19, 2005 >> Kung Fu
Tonight I went with Belinda and a pair of the Korean teachers to see a kung fu dojo. It was called Spirit Hands Taichi or something equally silly, but the master of the place was purportedly a Korean legend - his gym has trained a few Olympic medalists and he himself was a judge at the most recent Games. I wondered if there was a correlation there... somewhere... 10.0 from the Korean judge!
The dojo itself looked disappointingly like an office building, except that instead of desks and cubicals it had a honkin' big mat on the floor. We went into the master's office, where he sat in a comfy chair and showed us videos of martial arts exhibitions on his flat screen Samsung display. He kept trying to convince Belinda (the only one of us actually there to sign up for his ninjastics) to take up tai chi, which is basically not fighting at all but swaying around like a spiritually enlightened drunkard - albeit a very controlled and precise drunkard. Belinda looked at me and we were like "no, fuck this," and through a series of gestures and our Korean teacher interpetation service, we told him she wanted something with more bashing.
So then the master opened up Photoshop accidentally and had trouble maximizing his Media Player, but finally we were watching a video in which swordfighters flipped and twirled viciously through the air. This was more like it, and I hooted appreciatively. Mad props for weaponry. There are two styles of kung fu, the master told us: Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee. He quite clearly thought we were retarded but tolerated us nobly, even when Belinda asked if she could learn the kung fu which would best compliment her Chinese acupuncture skills.
On our way out we watched two shy teenagers high-kicking across the mat, almost booting themselves in the face with each impossibly vertical step. A contemplative instructor sat watching them and I wondered whether she would suddenly fly into a rage and chase them around the dojo with one of the many swords in the rack behind her. I don't really know why I was expecting this but a sword battle would've been a nice end to the visit, you have to admit.
Posted by Chris at 08:51 AM >> Commentations (6) | Permalink
December 16, 2005 >> Harry Potter in Korea
If you ever want to see just how far down the rabbit hole Media Imprints go, you need to hear about the Harry Potter mania here in Korea.
I may be overexaggerating with the word "mania": mania implies wild-eyed merchandise looting and fierce broomstick battles between elderly gentlemen for the last cinema ticket. Mania is babies with witch hats. And I haven't really seen anything like that. In Korea, it's more along the lines of a docile but rabid consumption of what the citizenry is convinced is the hottest Western media property known to man. Hah-ruh-ee Pot-tuh!
The movie broke about a month ago (yes, yes, the release dates of pig-dog American yango movies here are way behind your privileged schedule). I'm still hearing about it. I've been hearing about it for weeks. The last kids at school are crossing the finish line now, and it's still: "Teacher, teacher! I see the Pot-tuh!" And then the other kids chime in: "Teacher, teacher, I see the Hah-ruh-ee Pot-tuh THREE TIME!" I have lost the ability to do long division because my brain has had to make room for all these valuable 'How Many Times Has Each Child Seen Harry Potter?!?!' statistics.
We have several classes eagerly devouring Harry Potter books as part of their English lessons, and a movie class that recently watched - you guessed it - Freaky Friday. Man that's a quality flick. But the next movie they watched was Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets due to popular demand.
Sometimes the parents will write to me to assure me that they, too, have seen Harry Potter. This confuses me. Are they asking for my blessing? Am I supposed to give them a big shit-eating thumbs up for their obedience? Am I an acting emissary for Western Media, making a list and checking it twice to ensure every Korean has fallen under Potter's spell? Usually I just assume that must be the case and send their kid home with a construction-paper certificate I drafted up in Photoshop, assuring Mrs. Kim or Mrs. Park that their Harry Potter obligations to the J. K. Rowling MegaCorp have been fulfilled, and that an Official Harry Potter Fan Club Forehead Tattoo Kit will be in the mail shortly. 6-8 weeks.
I don't know about back home, but the Harry Potter movie posters here are quite hilarious. Most of them feature Harry and those other wizard guys sitting around in drab clothing, looking morose and for all the world like a teenaged goth-core band. Harry is growing up, they seem to say, and now it's time for some fucking angst! The darkness in his roiling, tormented heart can only be expressed through a poem about flying his broomstick into Cho Chang's eye, and then she shatters into a thousand pieces of glass and the Hogwarts towers will fall out of the sky but magic will hold us together, baby, because without magic what's left to live for in this world of technotronic madness?
So yeah, I saw the movie too. It was pretty okay, and none of the Koreans in the theaters laughed at the funny parts, like "they only drink single-malt whiskey" and something about pumpkin juice. Fuck, it was a while ago, I really don't remember.
But I watched the subtitles, jammed vertically against the right side of the screen, and I wondered whether the Koreans were really watching the same movie as we were. I wondered where the lines of translation divide an audience. I thought about all the Korean movies I've seen with English subtitles and whether I was really watching the same movie that the writer intended, because I'm not equipped with the knowledge of social and cultural conventions to really understand what I'm seeing. I don't have the language abilities to pick up on subtle jokes or emotion in dialogue - all I read is "I am love to you!" on the bottom of the screen.
However, there are still universal constants. I find it hard to believe that Ron's tuxedo... ruffle... thing for the Magical Wizard's Magic Ball of Magic could appear anything but stupid in any society. We laughed in unison, the Koreans and the whiteys, and it was nice to see that something can transcend language every once in a while.
Ha-ruh-ee Pot-tuh, building a uniform world through sight gags.
Posted by Chris at 10:11 PM >> Commentations (1) | Permalink
December 14, 2005 >> A Curious Supremacy
Bleaching your teeth, smiling flash, talking trash, under your breath.
It may surprise you guys to know that Canadians make up a vast proportion of the foreigners here in South Korea. It seems that many of the hagwons want a North American accent without - erm - the American. Sure, there are teachers from the U.S. here, and plenty of them, but as far as I can tell the stern Korean hierarchy goes like so:
1) Canadians
>> perceived advantages: North American dialect, heavily stereotyped ability to withstand cold temperatures, not from the United States.
2) Americans
>> perceived advantages: North American dialect, know all the latest Hollywood hit movies like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
>> perceived disadvantages: official citizen of the country and government that the world loves to hate.
3) Australians
>> perceived advantages: often attractive with crazy-strange blonde hair and blue eyes, speak English (sorta).
>> perceived disadvantages: Don't speak English like they do in 'the movies', loss of exotica factor because Australia is relatively close to Korea.
3) Kiwis
>> Same as Australia, yo, only smaller. Of course, if you tell a Kiwi that, you'll catch shit the same way someone would if they said Canada was a smaller (bigger?) version of the States. Little brother syndrome - a worldwide pandemic.
4) British
>> perceived advantages: crumpets.
>> perceived disadvantages: apparently speak second-rate English despite the fact that they invented the language, calling cigarettes 'fags' repeatedly and unrepentantly, dark history of colonialism, culturo-sexual relationship with the United States.
5) South Africans
>> perceived advantages: guh?
>> perceived disadvantages: The word 'Africa' is in your country name. Koreans are hilariously racist against black people, despite a big-time emulation of hip-hop culture among the youth. Chad once told me about kids at his school putting together an impromptu lesson on hierarchy: "White people best, then Korean, then... black." Isn't it a pretty fucked up thing when you not only assemble an order of racial supremecy, but specifically one in which you aren't even the top rung of the ladder? Anyway, one of the weekly expressions at our school had to be "Don't be racist" because kids were calling each other negros and everyone was crying.
So there ya go. I didn't invent this order, nor do I especially condone it (although being at the top feels like I won some kind of politically incorrect lottery). But South Korea is crawling with Canadian teachers, and I'm pretty amused to find myself as part of a second-tier majority abroad. However, lots of Canucks have been getting the deportation boot lately for working illegally and drugs and debauchery, so maybe we'll have a reputation as a nation of untrustworthy harlots within a year, I dunno. Nobody loves a harlot.
Posted by Chris at 08:41 AM >> Commentations (3) | Permalink
December 13, 2005 >> Nachos
Today was Cooking Day for the kindergartners, some half-baked event we whipped up to waste time until Christmas comes out of the oven. Notice how many crappy cooking related terms I crammed into that first sentence, I should be shot in the face.
Anyways, my awe-inspiring contribution for the day was Nachos - yes, nachos and I even made them in the microwave - and Chef Mike championed pizza buns. Together we constructed a devilish kitchen in the school gym with only one discernable purpose: to make these poor children as fat and malnourished as university students. I think we did a pretty good job too, under the guise of an 'Italian/Mexican Restaurant'. The pizza buns were assembled handily: "Okay, now add THREE pieces of pineapple! How many pieces? Five? Seven? No, three. No, Peter, stop eating the ham you pig!"
I threw together the nachos with some unnecessary theatricality, screaming in mock anguish with every tomato and green pepper I sliced open: "Noooo... don't eat me children... why are you cutting me... NOOOOOO!" The kids had no sympathy for the slaughtered vegetables, giggling through every death throe. They were fearless with innocence, plunging their fingers into the path of the chopping knife to grab tiny pieces of tomato to add to the nacho heap. Just think: I very nearly had a fine collection of five-year old pinkies. They would've made a cool necklace.
The knife also came in handy for deterring would-be chip thieves. I brandished it fiercely at offenders, and Mike led the class in a rousing game of "How many pieces should Chris-teacher cut Peter into?" The consensus was five. If you couldn't tell, we desensitize our children to violence in addition to teaching them English here at Herald.
But, as an aside, Peter really is a fat-ass... this kid is obsessed with food and I am sad to tell you that when he shoveled his handful of cheese into his mouth instead of neatly sprinkling it on his pizza bun, as the other kids were doing, I wasn't at all surprised. When he started licking cheese off the table, I was disgusted but still not surprised. When Mike held the back of his shirt while the other kids started in on the freshly microwaved nachos, and he ran in place like a hamster on a wheel, eyes on the prize, I laughed long and hard but - you guessed it - still wasn't surprised. This kid is pretty fat and if I carved him up with my knife, he would've fed the entire school for two days, maybe three. I suppose we should've felt bad for feeding him fatty trash-food, but - surprise! - I have no conscience. I do have a keen sense of cruelty though. Ha ha!
Moving onwards... here is a picture of the kids devouring nachos like starving immigrants. The deer-in-the-headlights, the girl with salsa all over her face, is Sarah and one of the strangest kindergartners. She is consequentially one of my favourites. I don't think Sarah's ever said a word of English to me - I don't teach her class - but every once in a while she'll come into the teacher's lounge for Masterpiece Puppet Theatre. She'll have a bunny puppet and I'll have a duck puppet and she'll make the bunny hop around and make strange high-pitched noises - "Meep meep meep!" - and I'll sit, fascinated with how fucking weird the whole thing is, and try to keep up with the duck. Sometimes the duck and bunny are friends, and sometimes they aren't. Sometimes the bunny can fly and sometimes it burrows into my armpit. I never quite know what each performance of Masterpiece Puppet Theatre will bring, and I don't think she does either. Every episode closes when the bell eventually rings and Sarah goes prancing off into the great unknown, sans bunny and singing to herself with wide-eyed abandon.
There are places in Korea where a plate of nachos costs SIXTY BUCKS. And other, more reasonable, places where a plate of nachos costs TEN BUCKS. Wait, that's not reasonable at all, it's a cultural travesty. They ('They' being The Man - The Korean Man) must really not want nachos to infiltrate this country.
I'm gonna be in trouble. Save me, mysterious bunny puppet!
Posted by Chris at 11:00 AM >> Commentations (2) | Permalink
>> Get Here
When I first started thinking about ESL - and I think this is kinda true of most teachers in Asia - the actual teaching and the kids placed low on my list of priorities. The money, the culture and the "Holy-shit-what-am-I-doing-after-I-graduate????" were my driving motivations. I didn't know a thing about teaching children. In fact, I never really considered the job itself, or wondered whether I'd be able to actually do it, until I dropped off my Visa application in Vancouver.
During my brief and bewildering phone interview, I made up some lie about teaching swimming and basketball at the YMCA. The sad reality is that the closest I ever came to instruction at my Y job was beating punk-ass kids with a broom handle when I caught them stuffing lockers with soaking wet paper towels. I hated them. I whacked those precious children fiercely and they learnt a valuable lesson about not putting things in lockers that don't belong there.
In my interview, I said that I loved kindergartners which wasn't quite a lie: I didn't know any kindergartners at the time, so I couldn't really say if I liked them or hated them or wanted them burnt alive or what. But one of the only valuable skills I took out of university was the ability to pimp myself with words, and I did so enthusiastically despite the fact that I was ripping stoned. Sometimes things become instinct, and it's especially easy to sell yourself as a Hero of Modern Education when the person you're selling to doesn't know what "swimming" means and needs to go get a translator.
And so I came here, wreathed in falsehoods and newfound doubt, and you can imagine my surprise when I woke up one morning to find that I loved my job.
"Oh Clemens, you sappy motherfucker," y'all must be saying. "Listen to you cater to the child-rearing potentials, the maternally minded audience. Stop trying to get laid with wannabe preggos. I don't believe your rigmarole about loving kids for one second!"
Well let me tell you that it's just as surprising and mildly shaming for me to admit as it is for you to endure, dear doubter. And I would never say "rigmarole", by the way, that's a totally gay word and I won't let you pin it on me.
But it's the truth, you know, about really liking school. I mean sure, there are shit days and shit classes and sometimes children still get whacked when I'm hungover and in a pissy mood and they tweak me just the wrong way. Some kids just don't want to learn and they spend their 35 minutes bullying and looking surly and swearing in Korean. I've bashed many heads together, wrestling style, and I've dragged jelly-legged screamers down the hallway to chat with the fearsome Sue-Teacher. I tell miscreants that I'm going to cook their heads in an oven, that I'm going to throw them out the six-storey window. I often threaten their eyesight with a particularly rusty push-pin. It's not all fun and games.
But I feel warm, I glow, every time a kid tries something innovative with English, each time they push their inexperience in new directions. I see eyes light up when tiny faces finally get it and the kids look so proud and I feel so proud and the classroom pulsates with good, honest pride, the kind of pride you could never condemn in a thousand years. Today a girl brought me a hilariously nonsensical poem along with her homework, not because I asked for one but just because she loves to write. Today I taught poetry and rambled about Robert Frost's syllabic structures, drawing pictures of metaphoric eggs on the whiteboard and I felt high as a kite, a big grin painting my face as I gushed. Today I sang Christmas carols and liked it. Today I woke up and looked forward to teaching.
Us ESL folk invest a lot of time in actually - gasp - teaching. It can preoccupy your thoughts, consume your days, and it's a lot heavier than I would've ever dreamt possible. And yet, when a full platoon of ESL teachers have just finished a 9 hour day and we're still wading deep in thought about kiddie progressions and regressions and retarded antics and which ones are Way Too Fat and classroom dynamics, you know something good's going on. You know you're in the right place. I guess sometimes you just have to arrive at that place before you can figure it out.
Posted by Chris at 09:42 AM >> Commentations (4) | Permalink
December 11, 2005 >> Demilitarized and Disabled
My DMZ image gallery and recap is finally finished and online!
I am sick once again, dear friends, and I would truly like to have more Korean madness for you to read about. But it would seem that a simple cold is enough to make me lathargic and leave my brain spinning in place, struggling for a foothold. And when you have been cajoled into a 5 am Itaewon drinkathon by certain other teachers... well, it's enough to prove that my body is no longer of a university-level caliber. It is susceptible. It carries a certain degree of risk. This is something new and scary.
Christmas is coming and the kiddies have been enthusiastically singing carols. The 12 Days of Christmas is the absolute worst, in that it blows out my voice after about eight verses and I collapse on the desk while the children lustily carry onwards and pat my back in mock sympathy. It's the best carol in that it wastes a good five minutes of class time per rendition and this is a valuable asset to any English teacher's arsenal.
For New Year's, me and Jen and Chad and Matt are venturing to Beijing, China for four days. Yes, four days is all our schools will afford us in vacation time during the holiest of holidays and it sorta sucks. But it's better than nothing and we will see the Great Wall and it is going to be fucking cool.
And Marta's coming to volunteer at my school for three weeks in March! The news is All Good these days, and my immune system better get with the program or I will have no qualms about replacing it at a shady Korean medicentre.
Posted by Chris at 08:44 AM >> Commentations (0) | Permalink
December 06, 2005 >> Tomboy
Little Jessica wants to be a boy. I hadn't noticed at first, not *way* back when I first started at Herald, but one day I learnt the score. "Jessica's mom is still worried," Sue the Supervisor said offhandedly. "She won't wear any dresses. And she likes suit-ties. A lot." I laughed because nobody loves ties, especially not kindergarteners. They are an open invitation for vicious strangulation in the play room during lunchtime and they look stupid. A tie is forever a Bad Thing.
Still, Jessica's fixation with boyswear piqued my interest and I started noticing other amusing Jessica-quirks in class. She is hilarious and fucking cool.
Remember when you were a kid and you had to do some stupid group reading exercise and your teacher, in a clear-cut burst of cruelty, assigned you a cross-gendered role? Like say you were a boy named Terrance and you had to shakily read, in front of smirking classmates, some awful speech about how your tiny girlie waist just couldn't be tinified any further by a sexy lace corset. And your Greek husband Masticus was coming home to bend you over the stove right after you cooked him dinner. (I don't really think that kind of material would be appropriate for children, but seeing as I'm a teacher myself now... oooh scary. How were our teachers idly screwing with us when we were young??)
Anyway, that would royally suck, right, being A WOMAN? It would be a big deal and you would probably get punched RIGHT IN THE FUCKING FACE after class. SMAOW! It's just as bad for most girls although, for them, it seems to be more of a rabid desire to be as girlie as possible than a fear of being masculine. You should see me hand out stickers: "Teacher, teacher! Pink... pink... PINKKKKKK!!!" Any time colour comes into play, the girl who doesn't get a pink anything will inevitably weep and/or glare at me like I'm Japanese for the rest of our time together. She will draw pictures of me with vampire fangs and boobies and facial sores and a dripping penis, and she will curse me under her breath. It's pretty hardcore.
The point is that girls like being girls and boys like being boys, it's some kind of complex gender socialization and I'm not really one to mess with that nonsense.
But Jessica's different. She fights to be the boy, tooth and nail, in any dialogue and whines quite compellingly whenever I say otherwise. There are three girls and one (real) boy so her non-comformity builds an uneasy symmetry in our class activities, and I usually let her have her way (unless I feel like winding her up, which is always fun). By now Sue and Alice have stopped reminding Jessica that she is, in fact, a girl and that her objections are misplaced. They understand, in some bizarre six year old manner; they see what's going on.
Jessica always picks the truck over the doll, the tank over the shopping cart. She loves talking about her father and enthusiastically battles the alpha-male boys for schoolyard supremacy. She's on the cusp of her own gender rebellion and all I can do is smile and wonder if she really knows what she's doing, or if Intuition is as crazy as I've always hoped.
My favourite Jessica moment thus far took place at a dingy little science museum, on a field trip a few weeks back. She had a ridiculous pair of 3D goggles strapped to her head and she turned, gaping a bit, and solemnly informed me of her findings: "Teacher... this is science!" This is science. I laughed and laughed and she had no idea why and you, reader, you probably don't either but you'll have to take my word for it that the absolute passion and sincerity of this statement coming from a six year old tomboy wearing oversized goggles was a Golden Moment in my life, a reaffirmation of how marvelously strange the world can be.
And Jessica still refuses to wear dresses and I love it.
Posted by Chris at 07:59 AM >> Commentations (7) | Permalink
December 02, 2005 >> No
"It's always an adventure when you put your hands down your pants... you might find some corn nuts."
If I write something in quotations, does that mean it really happened?
Posted by Chris at 11:54 PM >> Commentations (3) | Permalink
December 01, 2005 >> Buying a Sandwich
*Chris arrives at Day Day*
Korean countergirl: Blahblahblah Koreangarblesumnida?
Chris: Ahh... yes.
Korean countergirl: Tee hee! (laughing from behind her hands in that me-so-cutey-and-shy Asian way)
Chris: For sure!
Korean milkshakegirl: Tee hee hee!
Chris: Uh... special toasta? Hana? Hana special toasta?
NOTE: Special toasta is the only sandwich I know how to order. And hana = one.
Korean countergirl: Jujongdemongbabamoose?
Chris: Sounds good. (NOTE: It did not, in fact, sound good. It sounded like an intimidating brand of body lotion.)
Korean countergirl: One thousand and... and... and... five.
Chris: And five.
Korean countergirl: And five. Won. Give now.
Chris: Money!
Korean countergirl: Yes, mon-ee! (giggles)
*Chris gives Korean countergirl some money.*
Korean countergirl: You... American?
Chris: Sweet fuck no! Canada. From CANADA.
Korean countergirl: Canada?
Chris: CA-NA-DA. No America!
Korean countergirl: Canada! Good boy!
Chris: Yes... sexy.
Korean countergirl and milkshakegirl: Tee hee hee!
Chris: I like your hats.
NOTE: They were wearing santa hats that said "I Believe in the Santa".
Korean countergirl: Tee hee hee! Here is special toasta one!
*Chris takes the sandwich. He is drunk and hungry!*
Chris: Komsumnida! Bye.
*Chris turns to leave, cursing himself for talking and describing his actions in annoying third person dialogue.*
Korean countergirl: ByebyeIloveyou!
Korean milkshakegirl: ByebyeIloveyounow!
I really think that food places back home would have skyrocketing customer satisfaction ratings if they forced their employees to declare their love for each and every customer. I always leave Day Day with a sandwich in a bag and a big stupid grin on my face.
Posted by Chris at 09:24 AM >> Commentations (2) | Permalink