so, today we received rave reviews on our open lesson.
wait, make that… shin received rave reviews on the open lesson, and how beautiful i am… :-/
anyways, the point of this post is a short rant on big city slicker teachers from yangpyeong.
mr. song, as he’s called, teaches at tony’s and jethro’s school—yang-il high school in yangpyeong. when we attended his open lesson, some 2 months ago, he led the class entirely in english while tony acted as an expensive tape recorder (what i’m used to doing as well). tony informed us that not only does mr. song not usually teach the lessons in this way, but that the majority of the time, he doesn’t even attend the classes. granted, i realize all his open lesson business is bullshit and that it never represents the reality of how the classes are taught: in korean. however, i find it irritating and hypocritical that mr. song attended our lesson and proceeded to insult perhaps every single part of our school.
yes, yangdong is probably at the bottom of the ratings as far as yangpyeong-gun goes, but it’s MY shitty little school and i fucking love it. i have become fiercely loyal to it to the point that i loathe (already) the new teacher arriving here from south africa shortly. please keep in mind that i’m sure my feelings will change when this other foriegner arrives, but at the moment, this is MY yangdong. and however much it sucks… i still own it. i am reluctant to share it with anyone.
anyhoo, to the point of all of this, mr. song started his long string of insults by telling me that our school is “country.” even our kimchi was not to his liking as he found it to taste “too sour.” he also explained that our lunch was “country” because we had pork bone soup and apparently this is not the way of the modern big city dwellers like himself. he complained that our food was “strange” and the vegtables were not normally prepared in this way. we are just “too country.” i was extremely offended that this mediocre, lazy-ass (as described by others) teacher could come to my school and act so incredibly rude.
moving on, he decided to insult me as well. he started with the fact that it’s unbelievable i would be able to survive in this country condition. he asked (then interrupted interjecting his own opinion on the subject) how it was that i have made it so far. last, he decided to talk about my looks. he mentioned that when we had attended his open lesson a couple months ago, i had looked ok then, but NOW, now that he’s seen me a second time, i “look so beautiful.” what the fuck does that mean? “you looked like shit before, glad to see you got yourself together”? after discussing my clear insanity in thriving in a place such as this, he then turned to my teaching skills and the open class. he said that my enthusiasm was good, but that my actions were “too much” and that i might “scare the students.” are you fucking kidding? so i’m supposed to act stoic becuse i’m really fucking sure that will grab their attention. oh, yeah, thanks for the constructive criticism.
my response to all of this was the following: “i love it here. i love the food. my co-teacher and i get along splendidly and i’m staying another year.” i’m sure this irritated him, and i hope it continues to vex him the duration of the day. jerk. how dare you come here when we’ve most graciously invited you and blatently insult me and my school?
on the other hand, english teachers from the high school and one chinese teacher (with a minor in english) affirmed that i’ve chosen the correct profession in teaching. they relayed to me that they were impressed with my teaching skills as they had never seen me teach before. these small comments made putting up with that dickhead’s bullshit all the more tolerable.
small country korean towns—FIGHTING.
P.S. yo, mr. song—we’re fucking coming for you at the yangpyeong-gun volleball tournament next week. guess what else? we have an olympian on our team. BRING IT.
