A Bullshit Blog

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Dear Blog Readers,

After showing a slide of a man jumping over a bull during a bull fight in Spain, Mr Oh stops me in my tracks, “Simon, I have a question.” The students, as well as I, wait in anticipation. Mr Oh, “In England, do you use the term ‘bullshit’?” “Erm…(stunned silence from everybody)…you can’t really say that word…anywhere.” I hoped that he noted the emphasis on ‘anywhere’ encompassed a place such as in front of 35 students in a middle school. He turned to the students and spoke in Korean for a minute, but it felt like an hour, with every other word being “shit” or “bull”, or sometimes, “bullshit.” He turned to me at the end waiting for my reaction (as though I completely understood what he had just said). I assumed it was serious as the class were silent and not laughing (which is normal for embarrassing situations). I nodded and he replied, “Yes, in Korea, the term “bullshit” is not offensive because we use bull shit on the fields as fertilizer.” I told the class that they should definitely use the word “fertilizer” instead. I wish that one kid at the back had piped up, “Simon teacher, you’re talking fertilizer.”

Eun-bi and I have been going through the mid-term exam paper. It’s a huge ordeal as the students are so competitive that it is easily a hundred times harder to write the exam than to sit the exam. Try telling the students that! Any ambiguity or slight mistake is latched upon with vengeance for the possibility of an extra mark. We found some light relief though by looking through the textbook for inspiration. One of the characters is called Semin and she has some serious problems for which she needs some advice. Whoever wrote the book clearly thought that these situations could commonly occur in everyday life. The first one was asking grandma about her bad foot odour. If that wasn’t ridiculous enough, Grandma’s response was, “Wash often and powder your feet well. Rub some powder on your feet and put some in your shoes, too.” This was equally barbaric, since they should probably have put, “put some in your indoor slippers, too.” The following page has a character called Bonnie, who has a bad cold. How did she overcome this horrendous ordeal? Well, “I had a sore throat. I gargled with salt water. Then I wrapped bacon around my neck. My cat played with it, but I got better.”

The teacher’s office is so secretive at the moment because of the looming exams. As soon as a student even approaches the door, every teacher quickly flips over the exam paper and barks at them for coming too close. Every teacher is looking over their shoulder just in case a rogue agent has managed to break through the sliding door fortress and managed to get a sneak peak of the exam. The funniest moments are when a student has to genuinely give a message to a teacher. Instead of being allowed anywhere near the teacher, they have to stand in the doorway, turn around, face the wall and shout at the wall to convey the message. Absolutely brilliant.

Friday was an odd day because there was a festival going on that only a select few of the students were allowed to take part in it. The only indication that something was going on was a memo sent around in the morning. I translated it on Google, and it had the following at the end:

“For the convenience of other non-duty-related travel using a personal love song to the next opportunity to hope.”

Half way through my first period on writing appropriate personal love songs, an announcement came on the system which was then followed by at least two thirds of my class standing up and walking out. Consequently, the day’s lessons were a bit of a write-off. In one class, we sat and watched the Man United vs Chelsea Champions League match and in another we watched The Simpsons. After the class, Mr Oh turned to me and said, “What is The Simpsons? Is it famous in England?” The confused look on his face meant that I knew he was being deadly serious, “You’ve never seen or heard of The Simpsons?” Mr Oh, “No. I have never heard of it. It’s very good.” The man never ceases to amaze me.

In the evening, Stephanie, Julie, Chris, Betty and I did the unthinkable and went into Cheongju knowing we would miss the last bus back. Ridiculous, I know. Chris and Betty had been suffering earlier in the week with the flu. Luckily they’d wrapped some bacon around their necks and some of the feral stray cats had played with it and they’d miraculously got better. We went to the ridiculously named restaurant, ‘BonBon’ which did ridiculously good Italian food. Imagine spaghetti tasting of tomatoes and not sharp, overly garlic red sauce. Imagine red wine served in a wine class. Imagine garlic bread tasting of garlic with bread and not sugar. It was superb. We then went to the movies to watch a film called ‘Hanna’. ‘Hana’ in Korean, means ‘one’. This was an unbeatable opportunity for comic gold. I turned to the cashier, “Hanna, hana, juseyo.” I think he thought my raised smile, the embarrassed looks from my foreign friends and the tumbleweed rolling past in the background was a little odd but we got our tickets and went before we could get thrown out by the comedy security. The film was pretty good too but I felt my joke was the true highlight of the evening. Cheongju was dead at 11pm on a Friday night so we jumped into a taxi which suspiciously smelt like piss and began our hour long journey back home. It only cost £20 between 5 of us!

On Saturday, we had our first visitor from England! Laura’s mum arrived safe and sound after a couple of long flights. Being French, we had a good laugh that at 3am, the food trolley rattled down the aisles giving out chicken stir-fry and a croissant! Two hours later, the food trolley comes down again with beef stir-fry! The food wasn’t the only thing that was shocking; so was Laura’s hair. Literally weeks after her initial drastic haircut, she went into the hairdressers to ask for a trim. The hair dresser didn’t understand “trim” so she showed her a picture of Emma Watson from Harry Potter. I suppose it could have been worse, she could have shown a picture of Ron Weasley.

Tink and Laura

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Photos

Supplies 1
Christine giving out Laura's supplies from home.

Snacks
Worryingly similarly looking to cat poo. Has Michelle been putting the cat litter into our snacks???

Supplies 2
Complete with Easter Eggs!

Comments

[DAD]

Bullshit
Good Blog! The sentence' Friday...' ends in a preposition deduct one mark and correct. Love 2 all (fb speak init)