I was teaching my 1st grade class at Jinseo on "open day", where teachers and parents can walk into any classroom and watch the class. My teacher wanted to do something that involved lots of talking, to try to promote and advertise the students and their English skills. Fair enough as well. The problem was that she decided to do this via a song. We went through the class as normal, reading the song, explaining the song, etc etc, and then she wanted the students to sing it. She sort of gave me an indication to sing along with it, but i pretended to not not hear or see. None of the students sang, so it was a bit of a let down for her. We went through the song again to help the kids understand it, and then they tried singing it again. This time I made a few grunts and moans to pretend that i was trying. Unfortunatley, the teacher interpreted this as me really really wanting to sing. So straight after the second attempt, she asked me those fateful words, "Can you sing it?". I was hoping the question was rhetorical, or that I could say yes and then we just move on like nothing happened. But, because I am a professional, I answered her enthusiastically with, "ahhhh, yea..... sure". I then asked her, "with the melody?", hoping I could just read it without singing it, but no, she wanted the whole 9 yards. By now, there were 3 other teachers in the room, the Vice Principal and 2 parents - by far the most that had been in the room at any time. I begrudgingly asked her to play the music and i let it rip. Here are the lyrics to this touching and emotional masterpeice:
How pretty the tree is!
Oh, how gentle the sunshine is!
Theres a rainbow beyond the hill.
...Birds are singing songs witht their melodies.
Oh oh oh, see in the green green field the bright colours of the pretty flowers.
Im singing like the birds dancing with the breeze.
Theres love in my heart
I was a little slow to start, but when I figured I cant stop now, and ive already made an arse of myself, I let loose a little more and finished strong, as this picture will attest.
Well, this picture was taken at a karaoke place downtown and after alcohol, but it was was earily similar to me perfomance at the school. The students in typical Korean fashion applauded loudy after I finished, but they applaud each other for popping pimples, so I know it wasnt worth very much. I then swore revenge on my teacher and waited for my face to return to its normal colour. I also basked in the thought that was not gonna do something so akward and ridiculous for the rest of the day. Or year for that matter. T hings can only be more comfortable from here. I do have to say, why the hell did I have to do that. I didnt read anything that said I may be required to sing songs about pretty flowers in front of live humans. If I did, it may have altered my decision. Also, is it not middle school that I teach? This kind of stuff fits right in for the elementary school kids, but middle school?? Come on, they should be over this crap by now. And poor kids having to listen to me sing! They are the real victims in all this.
I also went on a "Cultural Day" with the other public school teachers in the area. It was meant to teach us about Korea, Jinju and to meet the other teachers. I know about 85% of the teachers anyway so that wasnt a big deal. But I am wondering about that other 15%. What do these people do?? Do they ever leave their house? What are they doing with their lives? These people have been here for extended periods of time too, it isnt like they arrived last week. If I had been here for 6 weeks and hadnt met anyone, I would have just started walking into EVERY single bar in town on Friday and Saturday night until I found some foreigners. I couldnt i magine not hanging out with people over here and some of these people have been here for 6 months or more, not 6 weeks! Honestly, id go crazy without all the people here, I dont know how these people do it. Anyway, other than me musing about what these people do we did see some stuff in and around town - The Jinju Castle Museam, the Bronze Age Museum, the Herbal Museum, and one other Museum that no one really knows what it was showcasing. So we certainly got our fair share of Museums for the day. Next trip will be the freshwater museum, the candle museum and sock museum, im told. It was good going to the castle museum because i hadnt actually been inside the castle before, even though its the main attraction of the city and right downtown. The best part of the day was archery and lunch. The worst part w as making some weird traditional Korean masks. The irony in the masks was mine actually turned out really well, which it absolutely shocking. The only thing Im worse at than singing is art, and im particularly bad at making masks of any discription, but this one turned out to be one of the best. I wont mention that the museum girl helped me more than anyone else (awesome job by the way, instructing classes at the museum on making plaster masks). The herbal museum was cool because it had this wierd outdoor childrens theme park kind of thing. None of it really made any sense but was pretty cool to look at. The highlight was definately the large bear and tiger heads that you could walk in. I was just a little disturbed though by the use of the tiger and bear because they were used as mascots everywhere in the museum and it was sort of promoting the fact that bear and tiger parts are used in alot of the old herbal remedy things. or i think thats how it went. either way, i dont want to think about how you kill tigers and bears and then chop off their wangs and make a tea out of it. I have some cool photos of me that are taken on someone elses camera, so once ill get them ill post them. A pic of me at archery and of the big bear head will have to do til then...
No comments:
Post a Comment