When cross cultural exchange backfires

Recently I have been teaching two kids privately after school for 40 minutes.  A giant (and apparently important) 6th grade exam is coming up, and most of the kids are in extra lessons after school.  When I saw the students who were coming for help in English, my first question was "Where are the other fifteen 6th graders who can't read?"

Apparently those kids are bad in other subjects as well, so they're using their extra help time elsewhere.  This makes me feel a slight bit better - I'm not actually destroying many of the kids in my classes: they are generally poor students. 

Today after class, the kids wanted to hang out in the English room for an extra 15 minutes before their next class.  I agreed, and showed them a couple of Mr. Bean clips to kill time.  Which led to cultural exchange backfire #1: teacher showed us a video with nudity in it!

Ummm.  Yes.  Guilty.  I totally forgot that in the hilarious Mr. Bean clip where he goes to the pool (see above) ends in him losing his swimming shorts and includes a close up of his naked behind (ironically one of the words we're learning: in front of, between, behind).  This isn't a huge deal, but it was totally unexpected, and Korean attitudes toward sex/nudity are pretty conservative.  I'm pretty sure the sensuality of Mr. Bean's butt is somewhere between shredded paper and an oak tree, so I think I'm in the clear. (Yes those were weird examples, but try and think of something completely non-sensual.  Difficult, right?)

Cross Cultural Exchange Backfire #2 

After I shared my Mr. Bean videos, the 11-year-old boy I tutor got really excited about sharing a video with me.  This seemed fine, especially as it was a music video, and I'm interested in gaining an appreciation for Korean music.

I cannot for the life of me find the video he played me, but it's probably best that I don't share it here.  It was a sort of melodic rap, and the video consisted of a series of childlike pencil sketches on writing paper.  First a sketch of an unhappy guy.  Then other kids.  I think they were making fun of him.  A woman appears.  He grabs her.  Suddenly there is red crayon everywhere, which is supposed to be blood.  A sketch of a knife covered in blood.  It continues.

I turned it off about halfway through and looked at my little sixth grader who liked the song so much.  He is skinny and short, with nerd glasses and a goofy grin.  Adorable.  I asked about the dead woman - "Teacher?" "No. Girlfriend." That made me feel a bit better.

"Why?" I asked, and then Google translated (이유).  


He typed something into Google translate that came out as "I like scary sad fdjaklhgfkdlsghjl" (Google translate's forte isn't Korean.)  


"Why?" I asked again.  (Why do you like this violent video when you are so cute and sweet and young?)

He typed again.  "Just dafshkj."  Just.  Just because. 

Posted in: classroom, Korea, miscommunication, mr. bean