AtM: Well that was… different….

Finals week! Not that that’s different, that part’s awesome. We get to go home early. Today was Gibuk day, which usually means that Math Teacher gives me a ride home and I don’t have to take the bus. Today, though, he was also transporting the 3 third graders (2 girls and a boy) to Pohang so they could go ‘study’ at the library (comic books and other novels- their tests are long since over, no way they were going to study). He dropped them off at the bus station. Which is right across from HomePlus. I had to buy a pepper, so I got off too.

They follow me into Homeplus, telling me they want to follow me. Ok, I’m fine with that. I’m just going to buy a pepper (soooo exciting), but they’re good kids, friendly, and this is Korea (MUCH more tolerant of being comfortable around strangers of a different age). So first was the funny.

We’re standing in front of the elevators in Homeplus, me asking them where they’re going (when the library is totally the opposite direction, not to mention not even in the building). In the middle of their explanation of ‘want to follow you’, this woman comes up, I think asking them about school or academy or something, I couldn’t quite catch it. Anyway, a couple sentences in, and my students suddenly look really embarrassed and apologetic, and the woman looks some form of unhappy as well. Thankfully I didn’t have too much time to panic that, hey, maybe people WILL freak out that there’s a foreigner and three middle school students. First (and this wasn’t what alleviated the panic) I hear one student go ‘아니요, 영어 선생님 입니다.’ (Of course, my grammar on that probably sucks, but what I heard was, in English, ‘no, she’s [the/our/a?] English teacher.’ So the woman first gets all flustered then starts apologizing like mad, I laugh, and then the students crack up. I was worried at first that she thought the whole deal was totally inappropriate and was about to bust on me for it, but turns out she thought that both I and my middle school students were all high school students hanging out for the afternoon (and looking for an academy? no thanks lady).

So she left, and I said, fine, follow me if you want, but I’m not doing anything exciting. I went upstairs to the grocery floor, bought two green peppers, some extra sausages for dinner tonight, and milk. Then they told me they wanted to see my home. Oooooooooook…… Well, I’ve heard of that, and I know for a fact they’ve hung out at other teachers’ homes before, so I was like, you know what? Why not. Come pop in, seeing as it’s only a couple blocks away and sort of on the way to the library anyway. I figured they could come in, look around all 10 square feet of the place, and ‘ok teacha, thank you! bye bye!’ and go ‘study’.

I’m pretty sure I caught a glimpse of life with a toddler. They opened every drawer and door in the kitchen (all 5 of them..), oohing and ahing at each one as if they were full of jewels and advanced technology instead of forks and pasta. Although, now that I think of it, forks and pasta are pretty revolutionary here… But really, how interesting can tupperware be?

They move from the hallway/kitchen into the real room, which serves as bedroom, living room, computer room, dining room, and pretty much all other rooms except bathroom. Poked around through everything. I told them about my pictures I have hanging up (“헐! (woah!) Teacha, America??” ‘ah, that one? That’s 안강.’ (a very small town between Gigye and Pohang.)) They looked through the couple books I have (‘Teacha! So much English!’), and I decided might as well have some fun with them. (And before your western minds think something terrible, NO THAT IS OF COURSE NOT WHAT I MEANT AT ALL!!) No, I introduced them to Set.

(If you have never played the game Set, you need to go find a deck. Now. Stop reading this, minimize facebook or your news/tech/whatever forum or any other open windows. Go find a game store, or a walmart even, and buy yourself a deck of Set. It will consume your mind.

Explanation of Set:
Basically, in this game there are four different categories: color, shading, shape, and number; with three possibilities to each (red/green/purple, outline/striped/solid, diamond/oval/squiggly, and one/two/three). There is one of each card, and you deal out a 3×4 square between whoever is playing (you can theoretically play with any number of people, but anymore than 6 and it gets a bit crowded). You must make a ‘Set’ by selecting three cards from the matrix whose categories, when put together, are EITHER all the same, or all different. So, among three cards, all same color, all same shape, all different shading, all different number. Or maybe they’re all the same color, shape, shading, and number. Or all different for the four categories. You can’t, for example, have one green card and two red. Anyway, this game drives people nuts, whether you’re just learning how to play, or it’s an old hat.)

I explain the game to them (and funnily enough, with so much less trouble than I usually have explaining it to native English speakers), and we start to play. They lost their minds and I had a laugh. After we finished the deck, they wanted me to show them something else. So I decided to show them a clapping/cup game that we’ll be playing for our Christmas party.

Well, 5 minutes into that, and there’s a knock on the door. Now, I’m not expecting my dinner guests for another 2 hours. So I go up to the door, ‘who is it?’ ‘[koreankoreankoreankorean]’ Two of my students come over to help me deal with this and I answer the door. I can tell the woman’s not happy. Guessing (and rightly so, my students told me after she left) the cup game noise was carrying down to the first floor (remember, we weren’t at a table). Turns out though, she also thought she’d drop a complaint about me being noisy in the early morning.

Now, not only am I a bit embarrassed that she would make a complaint like that in front of my students (it’s already REALLY weird that they’re in my home (from my western perspective), but now we have to touch a matter that feels even more personal and private? the early morning time?), but I was a bit perplexed.

I felt bad about the cup game thing (should’ve seen that coming, really), but what on earth do I do in the morning? Eat cereal? Change my clothes? Take a shower some mornings (usually a night thing for me)? Maybe it’s the brushing my hair? The reading my book? What on earth is it that’s so loud in the early morning? Actually, in the end I’m a bit grateful for that part, because instead of being embarrassed, I can focus on the being confused part.

And quite honestly, I’m still baffled. I didn’t even have cereal this morning. I had yogurt. How loud can yogurt possibly be?