Beware the round-eye

Did I call this or did I call this? If you read this blog you'll know, (and if you don't, just trust me, I said this would happen), it wasn't long ago that I predicted lots and lots of Korean people would be led by the nose onto the popular belief, (or "wave" as they now call popular beliefs in Korea), that foreigners are dispicable, immoral, child-molesters and drug addicts. Not that this wave needed much momentum.

Well here is a VERY well researched account of how ludicrous this whole thing really is. Thanks very much to gusts of popular feeling a blog I follow.

Now I don't know how accurate the statistics are in this article and I am a firm believer in the quote that says, "There are three kinds of lies, white lies, damned lies and statistics." BUT, because of past experience with Korean media, I don't think I even NEED to do the research, I'll just assume these statistics are far more accurate than anything that has lead Koreans to these misinformed points of view. Not that these ideas usually arise from any kind of statistics, newspaper reading or clinical study but...

It would be like asking Quickdraw McGraw's trusty dog, Snuffles, if he would mind finishing off the excess doggie bis que eets. Sorry it's not in English but you get the idea. Sort of the way I react for lasagna. (for anyone under the age of 30, Quickdraw Mcgraw was a dog with a dog, not unlike Goofy and Pluto. His dog, who was much more dog-like than him, would do almost anything for a dog bisquit and when he finally received his reward he would go into a state of bliss that included harp music and softly floating to the ground. Look it up on youtube sometime. Update yourself on the rich history of the great cartoons you have now.)

Anyway, now that I've committed the comedic no-no of analyzing my own joke thus rendering it laughless, I will continue. I've been positing and suppositioning and conjecturing and presuming and postulationing and opining, and word-inventing etc. (I'll put old Roget away now), that this was a very real and palatable "wave" crashing into the shore that is the peninsula of Korea. But surely there were doubters of my voice of reason. Surely there were those who stood by the Asian wisdom of Asians and held that there was no way such a wise culture could create such a harmful stereotype particularly in light of the very harmful stereotypes perpetrated on the Asians of being good at math and knowing martial arts and working hard and getting straight A's and... um... where was I going with this?

Well - HA! There it is in black and green!

The point of all of this is just the ability to show some people how tough it is for us foreign English teachers to live here sometimes. You absolutely KNOW that when you are introduced to your gorgeous 13-year-old student's parents they're not thinking about how good a teacher you are any more. Hell, she/he could be a total boot! It really doesn't matter. I have had more than one job interview that consisted of not a whole lot more than, "Don't "DATE" the students and we'll all be happy."

There was some question in my mind about whether there really WAS a problem with this sort of thing in the past that had lead to this sort of interview or whether it was just plain rumour and gossip. I found out that it was sort of both. In one school, I won't name, there was a teacher found to have "DATED" a student or two and who was fired for doing so. The thing is, he wasn't a foreigner, he was Korean. And he wasn't without a job for very long, he's back teaching as we speak. I don't want to go out on too slim a limb but I doubt this is an isolated incident. I've worked with many a teacher whose "care" for his students, or even "HER" students, transcended that which is rightfully considered appropriate.

EEEeeewwwww! I know! I have been pretty much crawling through the Sahara sands of sex for as long as I care to remember and I still haven't had even an instant with any of my students that made me fear that I'd "DATE" them! It just makes me shiver with disgust! I KNOW Juliet was only 13 when she got jiggy wid Romeo but these 19 and 20-year-olds I have in my class are in so many ways YOUNGER than Juliet. I guess I'm a bit like Roman Polanski in that I see beauty in these young girls, (at least 90% of my students are female), but "YOUNG" is the key word here. I just can't equate sex with them. REALLY! So it's very easy for me to do my job without surreptitiously investigating loose-hanging shirts or wide open skirts. And even though I have no problem saying that there are MANY drop-dead gorgeous girls in my classrooms, I'm talking Hanna Montana, not Angelina Jolie. I appologize for the crudity but to me, taking their underwear off would be pretty much like changing a diaper. And just so you know, I don't get any thrill from that.

I've had many a good session of just shooting the shit with my stewardess classes. They know I love this and it's exponentially less work for them to just carry on a conversation with me than it is to stick to the lesson plan. This doesn't mean I'm creepily keeping track of details like where they live or if they're single or not. It doesn't take them too long to realize that I'm just a harmless guy. And if you know what I'm talking about, this makes it EVEN HARDER to remain harmless! They begin to trust you and to be more physical and touchy-feely with you. I have actually put a limit on this with my students.

I think there are probably quite a few students who wonder if I'm gay! Or at least they wouldn't be too surprised if I decided to come out in class one day. But this is, (rest assured Mom, (and maybe other family members who have doubts)), never going to happen.

Oh now I've gone and done it! I didn't want to give the impression that any of my family members have any doubt as to my sexual proclivity. And I don't want to seem like I have any problem with people who choose to go that way. Not at all. What I'm saying here is I, and I feel pretty sure that all the foreign ESL teaching fellas I know here, are about the last guy Koreans should be skeptical about with their daughters. The statistics, now we KNOW, back this up.

And oh now I've gone and done it! The very act of posting this makes it seem all too likely that I'm doing it to convince people of my high-minded intentions. And how often is that the act of a person with the opposite?

Sigh. I suppose there's no way to avoid suspicion. But, maybe this will help: I'm in my 10th year here and have yet to be suspected, well convicted of any improprieties with my female students. Oh man! That sounds bad too doesn't it? Of COURSE I've been suspected! The interviewer basically told me that that was his one and only job! To suspect me. And let me tell you now, he really REALLY doesn't do anything else. At least nothing else that would help me.

The reason I'm posting, other than because it's been a while, is that when I read this I felt really GREAT! Finally a little bit of evidence that at least some of the Korean distrust of foreigners seems completely unfounded!

Do I think that this will make even a dent in the "wave" of Korean distrust of foreigners? Nope. Do I think that people around here, (my workplace), are gonna trust me more? Nope. Do I think I'll stop asking myself questions? Yup.

It all comes down to how to get over it. How have I dealt with things like this, (which are really par for the course here), for 10 LONG years?! It's something I've had the great pleasure to talk about with a few of my friends recently. I believe that the trials of life should be counted all joy. Like fire purifies the hardest metal. Like steel is tempered with rigourous beating. So am I improved. And it all makes for excellent blog fodder don't you think?