Abs Abroad

I made my way across town for the mandatory annual emissions check. I idled nervously in the third line at the car center, unsure of what exactly was expected of me and what results would be returned. A younger man asked for my registration in Korean and then gestured for me to leave the car running and wait in the makeshift office in the giant warehouse. It took about five minutes of me fiddling with the chair and glancing at the TV with updates on everyone’s cars, the place was busy for 5PM on a Monday, before an older mechanic called me over. “Do you speak Korean?” He asked. “No,”…

A few hours after lunch, Yana suddenly asked, “do you want to play volleyball?” “In general or right now?” “Right now.” I had suspected this might come about when she surreptitiously mentioned volleyball only to never follow up. I didn’t have any gym clothes, or rather, gym clothes appropriate for playing secret volleyball with the teachers on a Wednesday afternoon, so I offered to be the score keeper. There was an official stand with flippable numbers I called my own. Yana, decked out in track pants and a wrinkled green t-shirt, gathered the new 2-1 teacher on our way to the school gym. “Oh! Hello!!!” the new, very young teacher…

Honest to god, this was a wholly real conversation I had with the fourth graders today, entirely in Korean, in which the whole class was invested in its outcome. Student: Teacher, in America do people sit shotgun in taxis? Me: Hm.. well honestly, I’ve only taken a taxi once in the US but usually people sit in the backseat. Student: But what if there are four people? Me: Then three sit in the back and one sits shotgun. It’s weird to sit next to the taxi driver if you’re by yourself. Why do you ask? Student: Uh… Me: You were just curious? Student: Yeah, just because. I’ve rounded some other…

I often park myself in the hallway between classes where I can get a breeze rather than stifling in the teacher’s lounge. It has the added benefit of siphoning familiar and unfamiliar students into my orbit. The fourth graders come and stare at me, giggle, or gather like lost puppies in the scant five minutes. A fifth grader or two will come to ask me personal questions like one sweet girl who I just think wants my opinion on a video game…? Sometimes the first graders part around me like the red see and I love to push their polite buttons by saying 안녕 and watching their helpless, knee jerk…

After a strange day in which a disruptive sixth grader turned out to have secret English skills all along, I parked myself at the local cafe where I have a points card to prepare for my online Korean class. The cafe has huge windows along the front wall that look out over the sidewalk and main street. Sometimes I see my students walk by. Other times I have fun people watching. I was working diligently in the corner and sipping my latte sans mask so all passerby were able to see my full foreignness in the window. I looked up from my workbook to see a big kid and his…

The sixth graders were more chatty and disruptive today but I don’t take it personally anymore. If I have to stop class five times so that they can calm down from Mountain Dew or hormones or whatever, so be it. In my last class of the day, one girl stopped me as I was walking around checking writing. “Teacher, 털!” She said, excitedly pointing between the dark hair on my arms and the matching dark hair on hers. Very few of my students have any noticeable arm hair. “Hey, you’re right! Arm hair! Woohoo!” We bumped our arms together in a hairy high five approximation. I decided a long time…

We had the second debate class of this semester and were once again let down. Jenny reprimanded the students for failing to show up, and told them “I’m afraid that because of your insincerity this program will be canceled next year.” There was a smattering of apologies and promises but a leopard can’t change its spots. Three overslept, one had a fever, and so our only attendees were the student VP, who was the sole attendee last time, Hyunyung, who was the sole attendee the day we went to the museum, and my son, boy #3 who I was surprised to see. It was tough. Really tough. No matter what…

It was in the teacher’s lounge of my travel school that I finally talked to the highly regarded 6-2 homeroom teacher. Yana had spoken highly of him for turning around the behavior of the homeroom class– compared to the zombie-like apathy of 6-1, 6-2 is a delight. I only knew him to be young and aggressively polite; outside of 안녕하세요 we hadn’t spoken. Until this day. I scooted by him to fill up my paper cup with water and he greeted me in English. It was a miracle I didn’t drop everything in surprise. No one willingly speaks to me in English. Realizing that he had already passed the first…

Some days with sixth grade with hard, and some are entertaining like today, where the kids are juiced up on what I can only assume is pre-puberty hormones. We started to learn about frequency, and I had them offer their own crazy sentences: “How often do you poop?” “How often do you lie to your mom?” “How often do you fart in someone’s face?” “How often do you punch your friend?” I weaved through the desks to the tallest boy in class who sat up ramrod straight in shock. He’s a good kid, and so so easy to ruffle. “So, how often do you punch your friend?” I held out…