Conmen And Inspiration.

Korea is not known for its crime, in fact it is pretty apparent after a while in the country that there is not much obvious crime at all. You never see cars with smashed windows, people don't get mugged and all in all I've had very little opportunity to move from teaching into the life of a career criminal. The more astute amongst you may notice that I just used an ingenius play on words. "Career/Korea"...eh? Perhaps stand up comedy could be an alternative route to success with such witty linguistic feats.

Despite my disappointment at the general atmosphere of law abiding, good behaviour, I did at last discover that there was at least one serious criminal in the midst of Daegu. A man, or woman (equal opportunities etc), with not only a total lack of scruples, but a blatant disregard for the safety of children.

If you have read much of this blathering blog before (alliteration there, more linguistic feats), you will have noticed how much my life of teaching involves around talking about pets. I've had children with pet snails and children who have burger eating turtles called Obama. The younger children like to talk about pets and they have a catalogue of surreal reasons for their choice of pet. "Being quiet" was the reason given for why snails make better pets than dogs for example.

It was in a very low level class of particularly small, cherub faced children, that the topic of pets once more reared its bestial head. But this time the children had to draw their pet and tell me something about it. Enter gap-toothed Brian. I should point out that officially he is just called Brian, but between you and me, we can call him by his full name.

Brian told me in massively broken English that his pet kitten broke his house. I've never met someone whose house has been broken by a pet before and if I did and you asked me to guess what type of pet had caused such a calamity, a kitten would be right down near the bottom of my list of guesses. Probably a few places above a quiet snail.

However, when Brian presented me with his picture of his kitten, it became immediately apparent not only why his domestic reside had been so horribly affected but also that Daegu was home to a conman...or woman...of course. A conperson masquerading as a pet shop owner.

Because, it is quite evident from Brians picture that he has been duped, and was not sold a kitten at all. Now, I'm not a zoologist but my animal recognition skills are pretty sharp, I know my cows from my koalas. In addition, I have no reason to believe that Brian is anything other than a hugely accurate artist known in his area for almost photorealistic portraits.

Bearing these two things in mind, I would like you to look at Brian's "kitten" and assess for yourself whether Daegu's most crooked pet shop owner has sold Brian right down the river with no paddle.

Here it is:

Now, I think you would agree that it is patently clear, that poor young Brian has been conned. Because it is fairly obvious, that what he has in fact been sold, is a Velociraptor.

If taxonomy and the animal kingdom are not your forte, you might be unsure as to what a Velociraptor is. Usually, I would roll my eyes at your ignorance, but this time I will simply tell you to watch Jurassic Park clips on Youtube or google it.

It is now quite obvious just how Brian's home got into such a state. Because the upkeep and maintenance of kittens is quite different to that of a dinosaur that most people believed to be extinct.

I was obviously seething with rage at the sort of person who would take a young childs money and hand him a potentially deadly reptile under the guise of it being a kitten. But it does mean that there is a market for con artists in Daegu, which in hindsight is probably something I should have realised sooner given that I am currently employed under the job description of "teacher".

You might also notice if you look at the writing on Brian's picture, that in a moment of breathtaking inspiration he named his "kitten" Brian. Brilliant. And that reference to inspiration segues seemlessly into my next issue.

That issue is an "inspirational video" that my school told us we had to show to everyone of our classes before the final hour of study. This is not uncommon as videos espousing the benefits of English have been shown before, and inspiring the kids who often don't want to be there and would rather be at home playing catch with their dinosaurs, seems a fairly worthwhile goal.

So, I had to accompany every class to our seminar room, where they would watch a video to inspire them and then write their feelings and reactions on the board.

Great, time off from "teaching". The video begins.

It is a video of stills with monks chanting over the background. The stills are all of a Bald Eagle and then a Bald Eagle with a broken beak and finally a normal Bald Eagle flying. There is Korean writing that apparently tells a story of how Bald Eagles reach a certain age where their beaks and talons don't work so they smash them off on rocks and new ones grow and they are reborn and live another thirty years.

What the FUCK does that have to do with English? Not only that, but how does it inspire a student? I asked our boss if they were not concerned that if properly inspired some of the students might take to smashing their noses against their desks.

She smiled at me in a sympathetic way as if I might be a little unwell, but I'm not the one who thinks an urban legend about Bald Eagles will inspire Korean children to practice their subject-verb agreements and study for their vocabulary tests am I?

So the kids filed up to write in Korean (of all things!) their reactions. I sounded out the words they were writing and wondered if "bemused" or "uninterested to the point of mild boredom" had been scrawled up there. None of them seemed very inspired, but they liked the look of the Eagle, so I didn't want to break it to them the whole thing is absolute bollocks too.

Bald Eagles don't break off their beaks, talons or feathers to be reborn and live longer. It doesn't happen. So we may as well have shown a video of how Peter Pan escaped growing old by flying to fucking Nevernever Land. He did? Well knock me down with a Bald Eagle feather, I better go and work on my spelling then.

I don't know where this video nonsense originated from but I have a strong suspicion that it was made by a man (or woman) sitting in a pet shop somewhere in Daegu, selling off unusually scaly and cold blooded kittens. And I want that person to hire me.