Canadianizing Korea?

• Here we are- the end of another short week. Last Sunday (for those of you whose faces I didn't rub this in), was Chinese New Year and so Monday was a holiday. Having celebrated New Year's twice so far this year, I encourage all of you to email me and let me know if your culture has a New Year's as well, as I would like to push for these days off, in addition to the New Year's I've already celebrated. This is a very important trick I learned from a co-worker at the Lobster Pit who claimed to be Jewish (there is no Jewish population in Calgary) and quickly declared New Year's, Valentine's Day, her birthday and several other random days as Jewish holidays. Management didn't know any better, so she was given the time off. Now that I'm in Korea, I figure what better time to take advantage of the situation?

  I've begun to wonder recently what the long term affects will be of all these foreigners in a country that has been so closed off to the world until quite recently. It is clear that English will eventually become a strong second language here (Koreans, by the way, seem to have no fears about losing their heritage or feel threatened by those that are able to speak English- which makes me wonder why the English and French can't live side by side without hostility in Canada? What is English Canada so afraid of?). It is evident from the amount of mixed couples that there will soon be many Korean/Canadian and Korean/American children. They will learn how to wear winter clothing (as I had to show some shop owners this week what to do with th idiot strings on my newly purchased mitts). They have already begun to say "Bless you" when someone sneezes. As God is my witness, by the time I leave, these children will cover their mouths when they cough. But what am I teaching them? Just English or North American social conditioning? Both? As an actor, I've spent a lot of time thinking about social conventions- and how they say a lot of the values of a culture, but also how they condition us to respond a certain way. To be a certain way. And I'm not sure that I like that I'm passing this on to another generation. Sticking them with another set of social conventions to pair with their Korean ones. Am I going to aid in creating a generation of children who cover their mouths whenever they are opened, for whatever reason (Koreans cover their mouths when they laugh)? Why are we so against the sight of an open mouth? My concern has little to do with social conventions- I'm just sick and tired of being coughed all over, and I blame these children for making me and keeping me sick a record four times in four months. I've taught them please and thank you, because they come off as rude alot of the time when speaking English. Korean is a very direct language and they rarely bother with such words as please and thank you. Shop owners will thank their customers for shopping with them, but when I thank them for the service they provided- they simply say "Naaaay" (Yes) and walk away. In teaching these children English, what sort of new customs will develop from all this? Are they in danger of losing their culture? Or just in danger of being confused- unsure where their Canadian customs begin and their Korean one start?

  This week having been only four days, it passed by fast. I was one kid short in both of my kindergarten classes, which was sad. Tom, who left from my class of four year olds (his mother finally believed me when I said that her son was brilliant) was paraded off to Poly school, our rivals from down the street. It was sad- I realized when Tom left that I have gotten attached to these kids really quickly, and they to me. By the time I leave I will have spent a fifth of their lives with them. That's just weird. In any case, in losing Tom to the Poly school (I hate you Poly), I lost my happiest student, my smartest student and my translator for my littlest class. Tom's one of those kids you have to watch out for, because you think he's too young to understand, but then you catch him laughing at something that he shouldn't have understood... The remaining kids in that class were pretty thrown by Tom's sudden disappearance- and were a little upset about it. One of them, my boss' son (Jacob), asked me if Tom had gone to Canada. And that's when it hit me. These kids are going to grow up hating Canada. All they know of Canada, is that it is involved somehow in all the most stressful experiences they've had to date- the departure and introduction of new teachers. Everyone who leaves the school goes to Canada and is never heard from again. This is something I think that we should be seriously worried about. An entire generation is about to grow up resenting a country they know nothing about, and by that point- their days in English kindergarten will be nothing but a distant memory. They won't know why, but something about Canada just won't sit right with these Korean adults. It will get in the way of their business decisions. Relations with Canada will suffer. Canada will be openly bitter that they are losing all their University graduates to a nation with 4% tax - and that despite their promises to return, nothing is certain. Koreans just won't know what to make of the discomfort deep in the pit of their stomachs. They will eventually resort to therapy- since all my kids are headed down the road of success, they can afford therapy (if their parents will shell out 500$ a month for kindergarten class, it can safely assumed). And after years and years, and many millions of won later, it will be discovered that these feelings of uncertainty and distrust result from abandonment issues, coming from their years at English schools and feeling as though they've been left in the dust, as their teachers run back to Canada- never to be seen or heard from again. Twenty years down the line, when I am 45, old and grey- I will be awoken at some god-forsaken hour - (like 9am), by pounding on my front door and screams of "Stepanie sansaynim!!!" And I will open the door to find, standing in front of me- Tom, Jennifer, Ryan, Sally and Simon - and they will demand answers. Why did you leave us? Didn't you think about how this would affect us in the long run? Why would you do something like this to hurt us after we loved you? After we gave you presents of Pepero and shared our kimchee? Why would you hug us, just to hurt us later? And it will occur to me, that despite the fact that I never had any children to call my own- my answer to Ryan will still be as true then as it is now. "Ryan, I don't need any kids, I have you! And I can send you home on Friday at 3:00!" Only in this case, I will be put in the same situation that so many of our parents have or will find themselves in. They, like me, will be forced to answer for the decisions that we made in our lives. All because a therapist told them that their hatred for Canada was all a result of a string of Canadian teachers running off at the end of their contracts. God I hate therapists!!!