But not in a creepy, Michael Jackson kind of way.
Another aspect of Korean manners (somewhat akin to the staring thing) is bluntness. Often to the point of rudeness, but occasionally amusing. This is about one of the amusing ones.
Some of my students think it’s really cool that I ride a motorcycle. I’m beginning to think I get more cool points for the bike than the ninja shoes. Some of them have taken to coming outside when I leave work to watch me ride off. I wouldn’t call it a “fan club” or any other such thing, but I’m unsure what to call it. They just come outside (or are already waiting around my bike), jabber for a bit, then watch me head home.
This past Friday (see? I said I was lazy) I had about seven or eight of them gathered around as I got ready to leave. Mostly boys, but a couple of the girls in that class were out there as well. As I was getting ready to put my helmet on, one of the girls said, “teacher, your glasses,” noticing that I couldn’t very well put my helmet on while wearing them. I always take them off and hook them into the chest strap of my backpack when I put it on. It’s a convenient place and I don’t have to worry about them falling onto the ground as I would if I set them on the bike. So I did my usual thing after taking them off. Before I could put my helmet on I was stopped dead by cries of, “Oooooooowooooooww! Andrew cute-o!”
From the boys….
That was just too weird.
I paused and was kind of like, “what?!?” and they simply continued. Not quite like the old, “OMYGODIT’STHEBEATLES” cries, but definitely odd. I shook my head and put my helmet on. Thankfully, the noise died down as I replaced my glasses and got on the bike. I told the kids they were weird and rode home.
Now, without some perspective, this probably sounds creepy, but it’s really not. Gender boundaries are a little different in Korea than in the US. Here, it’s okay – and common – for girls to hold hands with their female friends or for boys to put an arm around a male friend’s shoulder while talking to him. I think it has a lot to do with the lack of a “personal space” concept. It’s also common to comment on other people’s appearances, even if they’re the same gender as themselves. You’d never catch a schoolkid in the US commenting that his male teacher is cute. He’d get called a “fag” and have the shit kicked out of him pretty regularly from then on out. But in Korea there’s no fear of being labeled as gay. Officially, gay people don’t exist in Korea, so even if kids did make cracks like that, they’re not taken seriously.
A perfect example of this happened in one of my classes yesterday, with two of the boys from the motorcycle incident. They were sitting next to each other and kept playing and putting their arms around each other, trading swats and generally disrupting the class (where other students were taking turns reading aloud). At one point I teased them, asking if they were in love. Another boy said, “yes teacher, they are married.” Yet another boy jumped in, asking “who is man and who is woman?”
Without missing a beat, the smaller of the two boys who’d been playing said, “I am man and he is woman!”
It was kind of tough regaining control of the class after that.