I Am... an English Catch Phrase

In a departure from a normal blog post, I have dedicated this one almost entirely to pictures. What? Has Aubrey curbed her loquacious tendencies? Has she reformed her ways, dedicating herself to silence? Hardly. I'm just tired and I don't feel like thinking. And given that Blogger has recently switched to Beta, this heartens me in my attempts to post pictures. So here we go again.

Today my school held a festival, with a variety of activities throughout the day to keep the kids entertained and to keep me from having to do any work whatsoever. Wait, so why am I tired?

Instead, I did a lot of mingling, laughing and using what little English many of my kids have to interact with them. I realized about the tenth time I said, "Have a good time! KTF" (an ad slogan for Korea Telecom, a phone company here), that my English while in Korea has been officially reduced to catch phrases. Unable to communicate while using linking verbs or articles, I drop them all to sound like a young child learning English. "You go food eating?" Yes, I said this. Yes, my kids understand this.

So lately I have stopped resisting, just buying into the idea that communication, even in its lowest form, is much better than complete non-understanding. So, "Ha-ee. Nice to see you. Have a good time! How are you? I'm fine, thank you!"

My kids aren't actually taller than me, as it appears here. They made me squat down because they didn't want me to tower over them. Gotta love the rabbit ears; animal hats are hot in Korea now. The kid on the left always walks up to me, chin in hand, saying, "Handsome guy. Handsome guy." Humble, too.
Here are some first year students in the traditional Korean outfit, Hanbok. They're going to perform on the Kayagum, a Korean traditional musical instrument, similar to the harp, except laid flat on the floor.Belly dancers! I was shocked when they came out. Korea tends to be very conservative in their dress, at least from the waist up. But the girls wore the pants and then a beaded, bra-like top. I guess it's ok if it's cultural. I loved their dance, though.
Girls in their Hanboks selling food to raise money. I bought a lot and tried to give it all away.

Some girls did a cute dance dressed up as animals. They wore the outfits throughout the day. I told them I would buy food from them if they let me take a picture. I'm sure I didn't really need to bribe them, though. Below is Mrs. Kwan, one of my excellent co-teachers.

My rock stars! I spoke with a couple of these boys earlier in the year about them playing guitar, which I think is so cool simply because it's different here in Korea. These are some of my favorite boys, too, so it made me really excited to hear them play. They did an Avril Lavigne song while one of our teachers sang with them. All in all, not bad. I was really proud of them.

And lastly, the song I was in! Every day for the past several weeks while sitting at my desk during breaks I could hear mellifluous strains of a song I did not recognize but could hear was in English. Naturally I went to investigate. Some third years were singing the Michael Jackson song "Heal the World." They asked me to help them for their performance. I was excited to be able to help them out, because these were more favorites. Generally, favorites tend to be ones to try to speak English with me.

To my surprise, though, they didn't want me to sing. Instead I had to say some opening that is spoken in the original song and would never be understood by the crowd of non-English speakers.

But again, for the kiddos, I did it. "Think about the generations. And say that we want to make it a better place for our children and our children's children. So that they will know it's a better world for them. And just think if we can make it a better place."

Oh, you should have heard the delivery. I am amazing. Fully expecting a call soon from Hollywood. Or not... Well, have a good time! KTF