A Celestial Debate of Terrestrial Importance

Theological suspicions not withstanding, I propose Heaven to be a large coffee shop. More than this, a coffee shop in real Café du Monde style: white and blue tile, 15 foot ceilings, rod-iron tables scattered around huge round pillars. The beignets are always fresh and the weather perfect. On this day Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and the Emperor Hirohito share a pot of Café au lait and some of their thoughts. We enter the conversation as their discussion, strangely enough (and coincidentally a perfect topic for this blog), turns to English Teaching in South Korea……….

Masaryk: Are you really arguing that parents, who may or may not have any understanding of English and likely have no pedagogical experience, should be allowed to manipulate the goings on of a classroom at the behest of their own prejudices?

Hirohito: You know very well that I’m not saying that at all. I’m merely relaying to you the level of active participation that many East Asian parents consider natural. There are certain cultural differences that you should be aware of if you’re going to start criticizing an educational system.

Masaryk: So you admit it’s a problem?

Hirohito: I admit that most things involved with the very complex issue of education are capable of presenting any number of problems.

Masaryk: That’s a very Royal response, your majesty. But it doesn’t address the issue. Nor does it grapple with the clear social distinction made between a Korean teacher and a foreign “teacher.” You must understand that parents are bombarded daily with sensationalized stories of how western English teachers lack responsibility or training, are sexual deviant, addicted to drugs or worse. It doesn’t surprise me that parents who are inundated with this propagandistic nonsense feel they should act to preserve what they view as their child’s educational sanctity.

Hirohito: And what do you propose, dear president? Would you have the parents shipped off to “thought school” in Western countries to counter their own racial chauvinism? There are certain variables that simply have to be worked around. This may be one of them.

Masaryk: Exactly my point, oh enlightened one. It seems to me that the school administrators should act to thwart this kind of disruptive behavior. Yet they seem to encourage it by taking advantage of the lack of correspondence between English-speaking foreign teachers and Korean-speaking parents to make scapegoats out of teachers when problems inevitably arise.

Hirohito: You can’t really believe that these schools are purposely encouraging this? They have little to gain from tainting their instructors’ reputations just to quell the irrational reactions of some parents.

Masaryk: Well, I may have argued that last point a little over-zealously, but…..

--Both ghostly personalities are now focusing their attention on some elderly ghost stripping his robe off and pouring hot coffee over his chest.--

Hirohito: Who is that fool over there?

Masaryk: Oh, that’s the new guy, Kurt Vonnegut. He’s still in denial about the whole afterlife thing.

Hirohito/Masaryk: Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha…….

[I designed this post in flattering imitation of the scenes in Milan Kundera’s book Immortality where the late Goethe and Hemingway discuss the topic of their own remembrance. The topic has obviously been changed to suit a more current and practical interest.]

Damn!! Somebody Really Said That?!?!?!

It's not every day one comes across something so completely ridiculous, so overtly pompous, so hysterically absurd that it generates a lurid compulsion to read it again and again. I've always subscribed to the belief that the vast majority of people are inveterate self-praisers; we tend to be as convinced of our own genius almost as we are baffled by how no one else could notice. For this reason, with predictable consistency, some fool hopped-up on 100mg of self-importance makes a comment that, well, sounds something like...."if you get killed from smoking, you've lost an important part of your life"-Brooke Shields... or "The Korean Language and Korean Writing are the greatest cultural inheritance of everything in the world" -Mr. Notworthmentioning. Since this quick post is about quotes, I think it only fitting to close it with one.

“It’s so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say then don’t say it.” –Sam Levenson
Great advice, Sam!!!!

Pick Up Your Kid!!

Before coming to Korea I had neither the slightest inclination nor the tiniest bit of cause to ever even contemplate kicking the living shit out of a small child. But recently this urge, ne this craving to bludgeon both the child and the oblivious mother who thinks a packed subway staircase is the appropriate place for walking lessons has been difficult to suppress.

From the packed trains and platforms to the conveyor belts carrying frantically sprinting businessmen, every aspect of the Seoul Metro screams urgency. On any given morning the throngs of passengers pounding the marble floors and stairs as they transfer from one line to the next is a daunting spectacle. The trains regularly fill to bursting as literally millions of people make their way across the city. Yet all of this goes completely unnoticed by the average housewife. With only her Gucci handbag and small child in tow, this quintessential model of postmodern domesticism hunting for the perfect $2000 shower curtains remains bafflingly unaware of all this. I can no longer count the number of times I’ve watched in bewilderment as a mass of busy Koreans are forced to nervously wait behind a woman slowly and gently coaching her young child up or down a subway staircase.

Please, for everyone’s sake, pick up your kid!!!!