i have been working as a Yong-oh Kang-sa (that is, an English teacher in Korean language) and so far, i find my decision-making skills a kind of madness. to leave or not to leave the job… that is the question.

during the first few days of teaching our yellow-skinned Korean friends how to speak and write English, i thought that i would be completely insane. i teach in room number 13 (13… isn’t that a lucky number) and the room looks like a spin-off from a mental hospital solitary confinement room and i feel like i am in a strait (is the spelling right?) jacket. the room is about two steps long in all four corners. it has a chair and a desk inside, that’s all. i locked myself up during the first three days of my work inside the room (because before, i only had one class) but after knowing more about the race that you see everyday in telenovelas, i felt like i was lost in traslation.

i have five students as of this date. my first class is with a mother and her ultra-kulit bratty daughter (the kind that you want to kill), Doo Ri and Sara. Sara is quite behaved in my class because she has her mother with her, but of course, she still exhibits a sort of ADHD syndrome at times (but of course, she’s a normal kid. it just seems like she’s not because she is super hyper) but i think my class with her is better than that with the other teachers. i consider myself lucky enough.

anyway, this girl is one of those Koreans who are ‘lost in translation.’ Sara is a playful kid, and you know what she calls herself? A playgirl. and there is another hyper kid about her age (but not my student) and she calls her a playboy. and she tells me, "i like Harry (the other hyper kid). he’s a playboy and i am a playgirl.

she is lost in translation.

as days passed, i was given three more students. one, whose name is andrew (but he always changes his name - he changed it into andrei but when i told him that it sounds gay, he’s thinking of another name) looked like a bouncer in some nearby bar but he is only 18. i find him scary at first, because when i interviewed him for the entrance exam in that language school, he looked like he wanted to punch me for asking him questions in english. but he turned out to be fine as the days go by. but of course, when he tries to tell me something in english but he couldn’t say it, he takes out his electronic dictionary and types in the korean word. it turns out that he did get the word, but in the wrong context.

he is lost in translation.

another student of mine reminded me of my former classmate, jemin (i hope my classmates are reading this now), and his name is jun. he sort of looks like jemin, but only older, i think. during the first day that i taught him how to read english better, he has this expression of saying "i know, i know," which of course, to me it means like it’s a way of saying "yeah, i know, you don’t have to tell me." but again, i figured out that he doesn’t really take the meaning of that expression as it is. and he also has the habit of looking in his dictionary and stalling the discussion whenever he feels like it. and i do not have the courage to tell him that he is stalling the discussion because he might take it as something offensive.

what do you call this moment? Lost in translation.

my last student, and i hate to say that he is my favorite student even though we are lost in translation, is this 14-year-old boy named thomas. well, actually he’s just 12 years old, but his Korean age is 14. if i have to explain why do they have to add a year or two to their age, this post will just consume more than half of the page. anyway, he’s just 14 but he’s very tall for his age (he’s taller than me!) he’s very thin and his ears are big. he sports an innocent look and you can tell that he is a nice, smart kid at one glance. what fascinates me about him is that he loves to read books (onward, book-lovers!). he had already read the ‘da vinci code,’ ‘dangerous liasons,’ and other novels, both classic and contemporary, and i haven’t even read them yet. he also loves to listen to classical music and watching movies. i haven’t met a kid like him. most kids about his age only care about computer games (but he also likes computer games) and other useless stuff (like drinking beer at age 14 and those kids even look smaller and younger than thomas), but he’s different. he knows a lot of words but the problem is that he doesn’t know how to express them in english. he becomes frustrated whenever this happen and bumps his head on the wall or stomp his feet on the floor. sometimes, he would even move his legs up and down and since where we have our classes is just a small room, he accidentally kicks my knees but he would say sorry after. i would like to teach him about the wonders of literature someday but of course, he’s not staying that long. in fact, he’s leaving next week. i am trying my best to make him learn English before he goes back to Korea. i am still thinking of ways, but right now, i am out of ideas. it would be better if i could speak the language so i would be able to explain the words in a medium which he knows best, but the only things which i know how to say in korean are annyong haseo, kamsamhamneeda and uh… yong-oh kang-sa. and one more thing which makes my teaching job hard during his class is the fact that we use a book with Korean instructions. i have to think of ways so that our class will not be a self-study kind of thing. wish me luck.

i am planning to leave either next week or when all of my students have left for Korea. they are not staying for long. soon enough, the yellow-skinned friends i see everyday in kawit cavite will just be seen on primetime tv slot again. but i guess that this is a totally weird experience. knowing more about how people possessing a different culture is something out of this world.

i guess all i have left to say is "Aja!"