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Permalink Reply by Steven S. Bammel on June 21, 2011 at 11:58am

Those are excellent examples. And in fact, they are more than language experiences, they are cultural issues. A good lesson that culture and language are deeply intertwined and you really can't have one without the other.

 

Thanks for sharing!

Permalink Reply by Jay Juhyung Kim on June 28, 2011 at 2:44pm

Haha. that was fun story and also a little sad. : ) Some Korean teachers were really bad in my school years. Suppressing, suffocating, violent, etc.. Now it got much better.. Anyway, I think none of them were your fault.. : )

Permalink Reply by Steven S. Bammel on June 28, 2011 at 3:01pm

It's interesting you say that, Jay. I've also heard about the horrible, cruel teachers in Korean schools.... But I've never seen them.

My kids have now had a lot of teachers at Seongpo Elementary, which I guess is quite near the elementary school you went to here in Ansan, and most of them have been caring, hard-working people. I remember hearing about one incident of chair-throwing, but that was an exception, nobody got hurt, and according to my son, the kid who made the teacher mad deserved it... Another teacher never really got along with my wife, but apparently she was also not popular with the other mothers either. That's not a lot different than back at school in America for me a generation ago.

Same thing at the college level... I hear about all those horrible professors... but although I haven't been crazy about every professor at Hanyang (and there were a couple rather incompetent fellows and one that should have been fired long ago), I'm not sure this is any worse than anywhere else. I had some incompetent professors in the US too.

And come to think of it, I keep hearing about how terrible Korean bosses are... but I worked in a Korean workplace for about five years at LG and if there were bad things going on, they somehow managed to hide it all from me. I do remember one verbal fight that escalated into a pushing match, but that was just one instance in five plus y ears... Do people not fight in other countries?

There's apparently a dynamic going on here that I've had trouble noticing... Maybe I'm just not perceptive.

Permalink Reply by Jamie Lee 제이미리 on June 28, 2011 at 3:33pm

Irrelevant to our discussion but somehow I was reminded of this clip of staff fighting behind a news anchor live..I don't know to me the guy on the right looks superior..... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bUqgv-PogI

Permalink Reply by Jay Juhyung Kim on June 28, 2011 at 6:30pm

Maybe because things are getting better here? : )

In my elementary school years, I was often hit on the head by my teacher with a golf driver.

A metal golf driver! Can you guess how painful it was? :P

 

Almost everyday I saw students hit on the cheek, head, thigh, bottom, etc by teachers because of making a little noise or doing poorly on the test. And of course, students didn't deserve it at all. It was habitual violence by teachers who learned to release their stress that way.

 

I remember one day a teacher start hitting a student for over 5 minutes. It was too cruel. Grabbed the kid's hair and started punching, kicking, stepping on the fallen students, etc. The student ran away and left school for good but nothing was done to the teacher. 

 

Of course, there were more good teachers than bad teachers but the bad ones were too horrible.

e.g) How can a teacher keep punching a student on the face until the student's teeth come out in the middle of the torn cheek? And how can the teachers get away with it?

 

Well, I guess it is not happening anymore in Korea since students can upload the scene of violence on-line with their cell phones. : )

Permalink Reply by Steven S. Bammel on June 28, 2011 at 6:32pm

Wow! That's amazing... Very hard to believe.... But I believe you. :-)

Permalink Reply by Jay Juhyung Kim on June 28, 2011 at 7:54pm

Hahaha.. It was back in 1990-2000, before internet boom and wide spread of cell-phone camera..

Permalink Reply by Jamie Lee 제이미리 on June 28, 2011 at 3:29pm

Learning a new language and learning a culture will have their common grounds and differences. I would like to mention that in my example, I was focusing more on the barriers of learning a new language with lack of knowledge of the cultural differences. If you can study the different connotations of words in advance and learn the subjective cultural and/or emotional association that some words or phrases carry, in addition to a a words explicit or literal meaning you should be able to avoid such embarrassing moments as in mine shared above. Both teachers mentioned in my story were very charming and thoughtful teachers. In fact, I think in the second case, the teacher was trying to set an example of discipline through his strictness. (At least that is how I positively summarized my own experience). And the PE teacher in the first story actually had a sense of humor which was something I was lacking. 

 

I hope that we might/can pick up connotation of new Korean words through our stories shared.

Permalink Reply by Jay Juhyung Kim on June 28, 2011 at 6:50pm

Haha. I see. Yours was just a fun episode bringing up the cultural differences. Those are indeed interesting examples :)

Permalink Reply by William Sisson on June 28, 2011 at 7:58pm

Ok by no means do I even claim to know Korean. Sometimes I just copy what I hear.

My most embarrassing moment occurred very recently at my company when I was trying to tell a coworker to "wait a moment" in Korean. What came out of my mouth sounded very close to "wait a moment" when in fact it was a very slang curse phrase that shall not be repeated here. I think you understand. Any way the looks on all my colleagues faces was priceless. It was not until later I was explained the difference. Could have died.

Permalink Reply by Jamie Lee 제이미리 on June 28, 2011 at 8:14pm

William, I don't think I've ever heard anyone use that word even.

 

Thanks for sharing your little incident there or should I say coincidence.

When I'm conducting telephone interviews for English teachers I'm often asked to repeat myself when I say "what are your strengths as a teacher" even when pronounced with my American accent. So it's just easier to say "what are your strengths in the classroom" or they'll never miss "what makes you a good teacher". I'm not sure if it's just skype that has trouble transferring "s" sounds or if it's the words that I used together that make it unclear. 

 

During a recent trip to Vancouver, I noticed my bus driver would always answer questions by repeating their question. And in a country where there are a mosaic of nationalities and accents his method seemed like a very good idea.

 

Only if you'd used the word Kida-ryu-juseyo (please wait) after Jamshiman....even with a mispronunciation the message would have gone through. huhu ~

Permalink Reply by Steven S. Bammel on June 29, 2011 at 9:09am

I remember counting once to a group of people: 일천, 이천, 삼천, 사천, 오천, 육천, 칠천, 팔천, 구천, 십천... Everybody started laughing at 십천.

 

This is a story recounted to me by a friend... He'd gone shopping at a bakery for bread and meant to say "우유빵 주세요". The problem is his pronunciation of the ㅃ was a little off and he also left off the first character when asking.... 

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