So its the start of a new school year here in Korea, which means a whole new bunch of kids, and a whole new bunch of names. And this year, we've got some good ones!
In Korea, any child learning English has an "English name." Sometimes they choose it themselves, sometimes their parents or their teacher chooses it for them. Sometimes they change their name. With the bizarre obsession with the Disney movie 'Frozen' here in Korea, a bunch of kids have changed their names to Elsa, Anna, and Olaf. Below is a selection of my favorite names this year, in no particular order;
- Cap
- Carrot
- Plin
- Blue
- Shiny
- Milk
- Adonis
- Buzz
- Barbie
I can't decide which is my favourite, which is yours?
We've also got a lot of new teachers this year, and one of the Korean bilingual teachers complained to me last week (about a class that I teach for 45 minutes, and then she teaches for 45 minutes right after me);
"The kids keep correcting my pronunciation, you've taught them to say things with a British accent."
"Yeah . . . that's how I talk. That's how they should talk. That's how everyone should talk."
"But they sound like Game of Thrones!"
I was delighted! I will now teach all my kids to say "Winter is coming . . . "
So that's my new kids, this year I'm teaching little tiny toddlers (3 or 4 years old), who can barely speak Korean, let alone speak English, aswell as some 7 year olds, and I no longer teach Science. Regular readers of this blog will naturally be disappointed that I have to retire all my bunsen burners, chemicals, and other highly scientific equipment.
Fortunately, all my kids from last year that graduated have come back to the after school club, so I'm still teaching them which is good. In Korea, schools put on a full graduation ceremony at every level, not just at university like we do in England. So my little 8 year olds, had a graduation ceremony, with musical performances, speeches, and songs, before they left to go on up to 'big' school. The graduation song they had to sing included the lyrics;
I don't know how I can go on without you.
In this wicked world,
I'll be all alone.
These kids are 8. They're going to elementary school. They'll be fine!
Away from school, it was also St Patrick's Day recently. Seoul held a big St Patrick's Day Festival, as they do tend to have a 'festival' for pretty much anything in Korea. One of the organisers got on stage and announced;
"I want to welcome everyone to this wonderful Irish/American festival here today."
Wait, what?!?! Irish/American? Where did those Irish/American people come from originally again? Oh yeah, Ireland!
The festival included lots of Irish music and Irish dancing. Sorry, Irish/American music and Irish/American dancing, aswell as lots of that famous Irish/American drink; Guinness. The above group in their red outfits are actually a Korean group, who took the gold medal at the recent Irish/American Dancing World Championships. Or so my Irish friend told me (but she's Irish, not Irish/American, so what does she know?).
I also discovered that Korean's have lower standards than English people. I was writing a message to a Korean friend, saying that I thought a recent movie (Robocop) was alright, not great, and gave it a score of 6 out of 10. I ran the message through my translate app on my phone, and it came out as 8/10. I checked again, and according to my translate app, 6/10 in English is equivalent to 8/10 in Korean. And 8/10 in English is equivalent to 10/10 in Korean. I guess that means that Koreans are more easily pleased . . .
Finally, the Adventures of Tyrion the Turtle
Well needless to say that little Tyrion is very excited about the return of his namesake in Game of Thrones series 4 starting next month. Its all he can think about. So in an effort to distract him, I took him flying. Some people were a little surprised, but Tyrion had a great time . . .
