Children vs Old Men...

The title is a bit misleading as sadly I have no tale of a street fight between children and pensioners, although I would pay good money to see such an event. This is really just a comparison between my interaction with Korean children and my relationships with Korean pensioners. Both of which I have worked hard to foster.

Excluding Tiny Gangster who was discovered to have written a whole page in her notebook saying "Kill Monkey Roberts Teacher", I have so far got on well with most Korean children. And even Tiny Gangster seems to be softening her homicidal stance on me, as she actually smiled at me the other day and told me that her mother had told her to shut up when she was crying. I smiled too, it was a heart warming tale.

Outside of my students, I work hard to nurture my standing in the local community and each day sees me make a new and no doubt profound connection. Take yesterday for example, as I ambled down the street in the chill morning air, I had a fascinating conversation with a boy of about eight years old and it is these types of moments that show me I am reaching out and building a rapport between the alien worlds of east and west.

I was passing a school and noticed a cheerful little scamp staring at me. I stared back, two can play at that game you little short arse, let's see who blinks first. He did. But he also broke the tense silence of our stand off...

Stare Out Loser: "Hey!"

Me: "Hey!"

I'd thrown him a curve ball and he had to think for a moment...

Stare Out Loser: "Hi"

Me: "Hi"

Stare Out Loser: "Bye"

Me: "Bye"

Building Bridges.

Now compare that situation (which had gone from a hostile face off to a lifelong friendship) with my encounter later that day with Old Man Suit. Old Man Suit is an old man who wears a suit. The clues are in his name to be fair, but things are not always what they seem out here so I felt the need to clarify.

Old Man Suit goes to my gym and he either waits until he sees me walking in before appearing or he lives in the gym and never leaves. Because no matter what time I go, Old Man Suit is there. I'm a generous man and whilst it would be nice if the owners kicked out all Koreans during my workouts and gave me the place to myself, it is not something I expect and certainly not something I have demanded.

I can live with waiting for the odd machine, but I am rapidly growing tired of Old Man Suit. Firstly he "works out" in a suit. Why would anyone do that? That irks me almost as much as people in wheelchairs driving on the roads whilst the motorcyclists ride on the pavements.

Secondly Old Man Suit watches me with suspicion, as if I am the freak for coming to the gym in shorts and a t-shirt and carrying a water bottle. Old Man Suit drinks green tea in a transparent flask whilst "working out" and after each sip will shoot a mildly dissaproving look in my direction.

Now you may wonder why I have put speech marks around working out for the actitives that Old Man Suit conducts. Well I shall tell you, and in doing so explain my third and final reason for hating him.

He spends around 25 minutes on a single machine. "And why is that?" I hear you chime. Because he puts so little weight on the machine that it cannot reasonably constitute exercise anymore than putting on your socks in the morning classes as a workout. I'm no Arnold Schwarzenegger, (if anything I'm more Democrat than Republican) but Old Man Suit removes all the weights until he is just moving the pulley or the bar on the machine, over and over and over again.

He would get a more vigorous workout by making himself a large sandwich and repeatedly lifting it to his mouth to only take teenie, little bites and then returning it to the plate before another lift. If he used a heavy sandwich filling like cheddar it might double the mass that he currently lifts at the gym.

So I have to wait. I wait for a machine or I use one I don't want to, whilst this staring, suit clad weakling performs pointless tasks for what must be five thousand repetitions.

I hate you Old Man Suit and I shall not be building any bridges with you. Anyway, even if I tried he would probably spend a decade building his side of the bridge in miniscule steps, all whilst wearing a suit instead of workmen's overalls.

Talking of exercise, I have set a date for my race with Little Spoon. If your new to the blog, please do read all the back history it's really riveting stuff, but as a heads up, Little Spoon is small, says stupid things and runs about five miles a day. I have always opposed running and even walking is known to grate on me.

But in April we will run a half marathon. I might do it in a suit.

The topic of running leads me to my students once more and whilst not funny, this case once again just left me feeling that half of the time I teach it is just a little surreal.

The kids in one of my classes had to come up with a new sports team for a class project the other day; devise the name, choose the sport and design a uniform for them. One group actually chose a running club, and offered a good explanation for why they chose running and for why the club uniforms were red. But they offered not a single word on why the clubs name was "Passion of the Monkey".

As great a name as it was, I felt it needed some explanation and yet when asked for the reason for the name, they just shook their heads and said "just because".

I let it go, due to my fondness for monkeys and crowned them the winning group in a totally unbiased judgement.

Goodbye for now, this was Monkey Roberts.