Curse Words And Pepper Spray.

Yes, you read correctly. Curse words and Pepper Spray, which are two of my favourite things. I fucking love curse words and I also love (sorry I mean, I also fucking love) Pepper Spray. Granted, I've never been pepper sprayed or pepper sprayed anyone. Yet. But it sounds like a lot of fun and I like spicy things. I actually saw a Youtube video recently of a man who sprayed pepper spray into his own mouth to see what it was like.

It was pretty much as I'd imagine he expected it was going to be and it is probably not unfair to decide that he was an idiot. But not everyone with Pepper Spray is an idiot and thankfully not everyone who is an idiot has Pepper Spray.

So why am I talking about this? Well it's all thanks to a new teacher at my school who we shall call Jenny...mainly because that's her name, but also because I haven't got an appropriate nick name for her. Yet. You may have noticed that is the second single word sentence I've made from the word "yet" and I think it gives my writing an ominous and mildy threatening tone. As if I might pepper spray you at any minute. But I digress...

Jenny has been jogging recently, jogging a little too often for my liking, but not just for the hell of it, but in order to compete in a 10km race. This training appeared to be going well, until there was a bit of a problem one Monday afternoon. After her morning run, she noticed a Korean man outside the apartments. Now, being honest, Korean men are fairly common around here and whilst back home we would obviously be highly suspicious of such a phenomenon, out here in Korea, it's just one of those quirky things that you accept.

However, as Jenny left her apartment an hour later, this man was still there, and at this point, apparently he was masturbating and gesturing her over to join him. Now clearly, such an offer is on the face of it quite friendly and well meaning, but the Korean man in question had obviously got his cultural wires crossed, because he had failed to realise that this was a Monday. Westerners hate Mondays, and while on a Tuesday I'm sure Jenny would have appreciated his kindly overtures and politely declined, on a Monday with the first day of work looming she took it as any westerner would and was disgusted, appalled and angry.

But it got worse. Worse than public masturbation on a Monday you gasp? I know, it seems hard to fathom, that anyone could make a bigger faux pas and yet this man did. Because he repeated his behaviour and also followed her one day. It quickly became apparent to us all, that this man was not guilty of making a one off error of judgement, but was in fact a fucking sex pest. Notice how I managed to get a curse word in there, that's one of my favourite things you know?

Evidently, this deviant was a problem and so our school considered a few options. Jenny could switch apartments with me. Afterall, the likelihood of me being up in the morning and out running is exceptionally small, and therefore I would be unlikely to meet this chap. However, that didn't really solve the problem, because of course Jenny would still like to go out and run, and unless living in my apartment somehow imbued her with an essence of my laziness and apathy, this situation would be unlikely to change.

It was therefore left to one of my students to provide an unwitting solution. Olivia is only 11 or 12 years old but during a discussion about their favourite belongings the following exchange occured...

Olivia: "I need my spray. Is very hot and good for the strange man and thief."

Me: "Your spray? What do you mean? Do you mean you spray a person with it?"

Olivia: "Yes teacher, and if it does, they shout 'Aggghhhhhh' and crying, it's a very good for me."

Me: "You mean Pepper Spray? You have Pepper Spray? Who gave it to you?"

Olivia: "Ah yes, the Pepper Spray. My Auntie buy for me because a strange man tried my window."

Me: "Wow. Okay and have you ever sprayed anybody with it?"

Olivia: "My mother. It was accident teacher, but I spray her and she goes to the hospital and then hit for me when she home."

Me: "You pepper sprayed your mother? And then she hit you when she got back from hospital?"

At this point, I realised I had repeated what she had said several times, and she might be beginning to suspect that I was a bit simple. But laughing away she explained how the accident had occured and yes indeed she pepper sprayed her mother. Not only that, but after much explanation and broken English, I ascertained that it is not legal to buy it here, but that her Auntie had somehow got hold of it "away from the police". Brilliant.
This girl is also friends with my old student "Tiny Gangster" who you may recall had written me on a death wish list.

With Olivia's illegal arms dealing Auntie and Olivia's history of violence, the threat had suddenly become more real.

So I suggested to Jenny that perhaps we could procur an illegal weapon from one of my young students. I can't see any possible issues that could arise from such an arrangement. Either that or if she bumps into this excitable fellow again, she could perhaps just inform him that we teach at the same school as Olivia and her small friend "Tiny Gangster".

As I draw this to a close, you are probably wondering what the link is to curse words. Well, you probably were not wondering anything of the sort and were just wondering who the hell "Tiny Gangster" is, in which case you should have been reading my blog about 18 months ago. Go on, have a look...

The connection is actually in the very same class as Olivia. At the front sit two girls who are even younger and very hard working and enthusiastic. One of them is called Sally and as I explained something, out of absolutely nowhere she just said..."What the fuck teacher?".

I stopped and looked at her in stunned silence for a moment and she said again "What the fuck teacher? What does this mean, what the fuck?"

Me: "Don't say that it is a very bad word."

Sally: "Oh, very bad?"

Me: "Yes very bad, where did you hear it?"

Sally: "Sorry teacher, I heard it at school. In my class, one human told this to me."

One human? What sort of school do Sally's parents send her to, where she needs to explain to me that it was a human in her class who told her the swear word? I wanted to get to the bottom of this, but as I began to question her I noticed Olivia was miming a spraying motion at me and making a hissing sound like "Tssss...tssss".

I took that to mean that I had asked enough and so I don't know anything more about Sally's mixed species classroom. Yet.