Wednesday, March 10, 2003.
Last movie
seen: Old
School. Saw it with
Amy and
Kevin
last night. Hilarious.
Two people
I am flattered to be linked by:
Cool Guy.(The
Swank One is back!)
HOT Girl.
(I secretly call Theresa "Miss Luscious" in my head.)
KICKING ASS and TAKING NOTES
So, I'm an English teacher now. Amy is too. Sort of.
Not in Corea. But in a Corean church. Close enough.
When the Pastor of our church asked us if we could teach English classes, I was secretly ecstatic. After having scammed free weekly Corean classes for almost a year, I had been wanting to give something back and just be useful in some way. Or just not stupid, would be nice too.
The class is for those who are newer to the United States, as well as those who speak more Corean than English in any given week. Unlike most Asian-Americans I've met, a lot of the people at my church fit into those two categories, and have limited English speaking ability, even after living here for two decades. They are what Corean-Americans sometimes refer to as being Corean-Coreans, or F.O.B.s in general (Fresh Off the Boat, or plane these days).
Some of these people have yet to speak English fluently because they are pretty much land-locked in their local Corean communities with Corean workers, Corean church, Corean stores, et cetera. They try to learn in their spare time but when you work all day six or seven days a week, there isn't a lot of energy at the end of the day. To them The Land of Opportunity doesn't mean just being here. It means working your ass off to make that opportunity.
Other people, like my new Corean teacher this year, can speak English perfectly when it comes to anything related to African-American hair care products or store management. Her problem is that she has a hard time understanding what Caucasian people are saying. "White people talk funny. They don't make sense," she says after working twenty years in a Detroit store.
I have six "students" in my class so far. Amy has two students who require explanations in Corean.
First is my new Corean teacher mentioned above. She doesn't like to use her Corean name in public because she is keenly aware that the name "Kum" and "Sook" have very different connotations in English than in Corean. I will bet she didn't like the first ten minutes of Goldmember either. She goes by "Julia."
Another student in the English class is also in my Corean class - one of the Corean men from Uzbekistan, formerly part of the USSR, not Constantinople. I think somehow we bonded in the past year although I failed to notice it until he started slapping me on the back every time he saw me. I'm used to it. I like him.
There's also a middle-aged father who is incredibly nice and loves to carry Sun Su around, and two women near Amy's age. One of which reminds me of a 5' version of Hyori from Fin.K.L, except that the real Hyori is 5'6" of course. The other of which likes to call me "teacher" and makes me smile.
After discussing what they wanted from the class, we decided to keep things fun and interesting, without being too formal or textbook. We were going to watch movies!
The following week, I brought in two very easy-to-listen-to American movies for the class to choose from - Sense and Sensibility and Hellraiser 4. No, I'm kidding.
I actually brought in Rushmore and Serendipity. No, I'm serious.
Well, actually I left Serendipity at home. Just watching half of that movie was too much for me to bear. I heard some great things about it but I couldn't help but want to slap some sense into Kate Beckinsale the entire time. And all this time I thought the anticlimactic romantic garbage called Sleepless in Seattle deserved it's very own place in movie hell. Well, at least the two movies were meant for each other.
[I do not dislike chick flicks in general. Unless they contain Julia Roberts, of course. But those two movies were just chick flicks with a capital ICK in them. Twice.]
Anyways, we got through twenty minutes of pausing Rushmore before realizing that Max's penchant for witty dialog and long words was a little much for our beginning English class.
So, we settled on another movie. Big Daddy with Adam Sandler. Apparently the middle-aged father owned it and had a copy of the screenplay. It was light. It was funny. Seemed like a good idea for next week's attempt at English class. At the time.
Fourteen Reasons why Big Daddy with Adam Sandler might not have been the perfect choice for teaching English:1. Adam Sandler mumbles a lot. A LOT.
2. Adam Sandler swears a lot. A LOT.
3. "Bullshit."
4. "Kicking ass"
5. "Don't blow it on worthless crap."
6. "I ain't…."
7. "I got too much other shit going on."
8. "Shit!"
9. "Shit!" (again)
10. "That was a jerk thing to do."
11. "Why are you being so nuts…?"
12. "You need a father figure?"
13. "You're going down, sucker."
14. "Peace out."This was just the first five minutes of the movie. Two pages of dialog took us the entire hour. And yes, they wanted me to explain all of the terms above. You try explaining what "blow it on worthless crap" or "going down sucker" or even "peace out" means to a bunch of inquisitive Coreans.
We haven't even gotten to the part with the gay guys and Hooter's jokes yet. Aigoo.
But they are having fun and want to continue with the present movie. Even if it takes us a year and all of my once quiet dignity.
It's not all bad though. They actually got a lot out of some common phrases in conversations as well. So we'll stick with it for now, and I'll pick out "safe" words and phrases to use in normal conversation for them to learn. Just talking about the scenes is good practice for them. Maybe we'll watch Casablanca next time or something.
On the way out, the older father graciously shook my hand (for teaching him what "kicking ass" meant I guess). My Russian friend helped me clean up. Julia, my Corean teacher, seemed to have a headache. And one of the girls said "thank you teacher" to me again. Which almost made me giggle.
I thank the Lord that The Pastor doesn't need to take any English classes.
Peace out.
(Sun Su is a voracious reader. Or just voracious.)____________________________________________________
MEDEA SIN HOT MODEL
Today's Hot Model is the lovely but almost painfully shy, Annette.
After reading me for years, she finally emailed to say hello and sent me a pic upon request.
Annette herself is half-German and half-Mexican and says she relates the most to my entries about being half-Asian. "It stings both ways," she said, when people assume things from both sides.
She is a really sweet person and will probably be embarrassed to have her beautiful smile put online like this, despite giving me permission to.
She recently celebrated her 17th wedding anniversary with her very lucky husband. We should all be so lucky.
(Click here to become a MEDEA SIN HOT MODEL.)
