A lot of the students at Seoul Electronics High School smoke. In Korea, smoking is typically seen as an exclusively male habit (read: many women do smoke, but never in public. There are special smoking rooms in many public restrooms for women). But both girls and boys at my school are frequently caught and reprimanded for smoking on school grounds.
On a practical level, what this means for me is that when students ask to go to the bathroom during class, they usually don't have to go to the bathroom. They want to go to the bathroom to smoke. Which means: as much as I am opposed to the public school system having power over students' bodily needs, I can't just let them go without a fuss.
This conversation happened in one of the 2nd grade classes I have with Han Jin-An yesterday:
Student: "Teach-ah, toilet!"
Me: "Oh, you mean 'Can I go to the bathroom, please?'"
Student: "Yes, can I go bathroom please?"
Me: "Okay, you have 1 minute."
Student clutches at his stomach and makes groaning noises, then appeals to his classmates to help him explain the situation to me.
Different Student Who is Very Good at English: "Teacher, it's poop!"
Me: "Oh, really? Okay, 2 minutes."
Entire class erupts in laughter.
Student: "Teacher!"
Me: "Okay, okay, just hurry!"
Student hurries to bathroom.
One of my favorite things about South Korea is the absence of poop-phobia. What students in any American high school would have been willing to tell their teacher that they had to poop? My co-teachers are also occasionally frank with me about their indigestion and poop issues. <3
If you want to read more about South Korea and poop, click here.
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2 comments:
What a wonderful moment. I wish I was in your class Teach-ah!
Haha, that books sounds ridiculous. I think you should bring a copy back to the US to share with everyone there.
My experience in China has been limited, as most of my poop-related conversations were with other foreigners. Though not something they'd talk about in the US probably, during study abroad people talked pretty freely about their "la duzi" problems. La duzi means diarrhea, and I think that having a foreign word to use made it less inappropriate.
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