Apostrophes, Lanterns And Two More Kids.

It has been more than two weeks since I wrote a blog, and what a two weeks it has been. I have managed to do a great deal and yet not one bit of it is probably of much interest to anyone reading this. In fact a good deal of it wasn't even interesting to me and I was there doing these things by choice.

As I was writing my last blog about being invited to numerous festivals including a lantern festival, my mobile phone bleeped at me. Just as I finished writing that I would never change my shallow existence, I checked the text message, it was from my friend Yatesy:

"Lantern Festival in Seoul this weekend, what do you reckon?"

I looked at my blog. To stay true to my words I would have to refuse this invitiation, or I could totally backtrack and agree to go. As always I stuck to none of my guns and cheerfully agreed to see some lanterns.
Little Spoon, Dubs and Zucchini completed our group and it was off to Seoul.

The first stop was for traditional tea in a Korean Tea Shop. I love my tea, but I like Tetleys or to my American readers "English Breakfast Tea" and this ramshackle little joint had a menu of teas and not one option for a mug of Tetleys with milk. I curled my lip and glared at the waitress, but being the gentleman that I am agreed to order one of their traditional teas and not cause a scene.

I ordered "Dew Tea" which upon its arrival appeared to actually be dew collected from the ground in the morning, heated in a small pot and sold to gullible tourists for seven thousand won (Seven US dollars). It tasted of nothing. Which was preferable to the pot that Zucchini ordered which tasted like a cross between treacle and mud.

Dubs was happy with his pine nut tea, that had two pine nuts in it, and Yatesy drank some bizarre dishwater with dried flowers floating in it. Little Spoon was at this point already in a bar with friends drinking Bourbon. I'd missed a trick, but at least I was being cultural.

Lantern Festival next, and it was interesting to begin with. Sort of a glorified Blackpool Lights and if you are not British and don't know what Blackpool Lights is like, imagine a much tackier, smaller scaled version of the Seoul Lantern Festival.

The river was nice and some of the lanterns were decent, but some of them were just odd and there appeared to be half of the city in attendance which meant it took me two hours to walk about half a mile. Here are some of the lanterns from the good to the odd...





I was generally happy I went to the Lantern Festival but I wouldn't rush back, it was too busy and there were too many lanterns for my liking. That said Seoul was brilliant and I returned to Daegu full of optimism about a new blog.

But my chirpy state of mind was brutally crushed by some stinging criticism of my blog from a good friend back home. This little upstart works in publishing and is reading this now. She lambasted me for my lack of apostrophes. Well let me explain myself.

I am what is called in some circles a maverick. I don't teach English in the way you people deem it proper and I laugh in the face of grammatical rules. I embrace apostrophes for contractions like a long lost friend, but I spit in the eye of apostrophes for possessives like a long lost enemy.

You might not like my renegade spirit, but one day we will live in a world where writing "Donalds pencil case" is the norm and the old bigots from the past will have to hide behind closed doors and bemoan this exciting and dangerous new era.

Rest assured my kids are taught from the pages of my own book of rules and as they flourish under my assinine tutorage, I get the joy of having yet more surreal conversations.

The first exchange was with a tiny girl of about eight years old in my lowest level class who struts around the school like she is a rap star, kisses her teeth at students and will shake her fist at me if she dislikes something I've said. On this day she wanted to ask about my parents and how tall they were. I explained and she nodded gravely and then filled me in on her own situation.

Tiny Gangster: "Ah good teacher. My mother she is a very tall and a very fat"

Me: "Oh I see, and how about your father is he tall too?"

Tiny Gangster: "No teacher is a crazy. Mother is crazy tall and fat, but my father he is a very small and a very fat."

Me: "Oh...I see. Well..."

Tiny Gangster (interrupting and shaking her fist): "My mother...I want to her a punching."

Me: "You want to punch your mother? Why?"

Tiny Gangster: "Because she has the ugly face."

Fair enough.

And although not violent or aggressive, one of my more lively classes brought up a shock result in a discussion of their favourite stars and celebrities. I asked them to give me names and reasons...and a fairly unsurprising list unfolded for the first minute.
David Beckham because he is good at football. Leonardo Di Caprio because he is handsome. Girls Generation (Korean pop band) because they are very pretty. Ji Sung Park because he is a famous Korean and plays for Manchester Utd.

As the board filled up with actors, singers and sports stars, one boy suddenly shouts out "David Cameron".
The rest of the class erupt with screams of "Who, who is he?"

I think I must have misheard.

Me: "Did you say your favourite star is David Cameron?"

Young Tory: "Yes, David Cameron"

Me: "The joint Prime Minister of Britain?"

Young Tory: "Yes, David Cameron, Prime Minister."

I stand quietly for a minute and look at this boy. He is grinning at me in a disconcerting fashion.

Me: "Okay, so erm...why David Cameron."

Now this boy is laughing and shaking his head, "No no just joking teacher."

I'm lost. Is this some subtle Korean humour that I haven't grasped yet? What's the joke? Really he likes Nick Clegg? Or maybe it was a joke about the very notion of liking a politician because he is an eleven year old anarchist. I'll never know, as he wouldn't expand upon it any more and I became distracted by one of the other students pushing crayons into his ears.

Right, I'm off to drink some tea and not the type that is made from rain water and costs me more than two beers.