The Great and Powerful Oz

My kids all bow to me. I walk past in the hallways and a sea of junior high children bend forward as I pass. It's great, really. It makes me feel so powerful. But sometimes I wonder if it's going to my head.

They do this to all the teachers, actually. It is a sign of respect. Before each class begins, the class leader stands up. This is a student who was voted into this position at the beginning of the school year. When they stand up, they silence the other students. In English, it sounds like this. (First, imagine 40 students talking loudly.)

"Attention! Attention!" Now the student will check around the room to ensure all other students are seated, facing forward, and quiet.

"Bow." The entire class simultaneously leans forward in their chairs, greeting me with, "Hello, teacher."

It's enough to give me some sort of god complex.

Actually, this took a lot of getting used to. Having already spent a year in Korea, I was familiar with the bow as a greeting and frequently used it myself. However, a teacher never bows to the students. The other teachers, I noticed, stand erect, often without even making eye contact with students. Yet initially every time a student bowed to me, I would begin to bow back, catch myself, and snap backward in an attempt to hide my mistake.

Now I have grown quite accustomed to the bowing and truthfully enjoy it. But I still can't shake the nagging feeling that I'm like the Great and Powerful Oz, assumed to be outwardly intimidating and powerful, but actually just a frail, aging man pulling levers behind a curtain.

I try to ameliorate my discomfort by walking through the halls, smiling at the students, greeting them with, "Hello. Hi. How are you. Nice to see you." I am just a foreigner, so I can get away with this display of camaraderie. As I have stated before, there is a distinct curiousity about me and how I act. So I'm sure they just chalk up my friendliness with them to being a little bit strange, as all foreigners are.

Yet as the students file past in the hallways of Dong-a, bowing with a "hello, teahcer," and I smile confidently, the inaudible voice continues to whisper to me, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain..."