Dear Friends and Family,

After several weeks of provocation, one November evening I lost my temper. Not in public. Not even rudely. But I cannot deny that I snapped - and unleashed the part of me that would make a stellar litigator but that I hold back because I believe that it makes me a poor human being.

Shall I explain?

You may recall that besides conversation classes, I was co-teaching English Reading Comprehension with a diminutive older Korean teacher whose teaching and grasp of the English language were not impressive. This arrangement was decided upon after just after the semester started and in her class sessions, I was set-up as a walking/reading/proof-reading authentic dictionary – primarily intended to back up what she told the classes (wrongly or rightly). This is not teaching - but respecting her as an elder teacher, knowing that her solitary life hadn’t been easy, and for cultural face-saving reasons, I abided by this arrangement with (albeit less than perfect) patience. But classes did not go well and usually enthusiastic students were apathetic – participation was minimal, heads slumped over desks.

My “co-teacher” did not seem to notice the apathy; I optimistically tried to encourage change and while pessimistically simmering.

Things got worse when she decided to veer from the class text, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupéry, to Percy Shelley’s poem “Mont Blanc” – did you find it as beautiful as I did? But “Mont Blanc” is also a long and hard poem that the students just couldn't grasp; those who paid attention in class were frustrated. My patience slid notches lower with each class session and fell to record lows when my “co-teacher” didn’t show up for two class sessions, leaving me to teach material that I strongly disagreed with. The “Mont Blanc” classes were bad. Really bad. And she didn’t seem to care. That marked the end of my patience.

I actually cracked just after the final “Mont Blanc” session – seeing red while counting a record fourteen student heads on desks. Per my usual after class habit, I returned to my co-teacher’s lone office with her – but the moment we walked through the door, temper overcame respect for an elder and I fervently suggested that the poem was too hard and out spewed a serious of constructive suggestions.

Her reply was that the students were too lazy to understand but that the poem was an experiment – and assured me that the only part she planned to test on was vocabulary. That didn’t simmer me down much but I took a deep breath and resolved to stay through a peace-making cup of tea. And found myself the recipient of unsolicited advice regarding my marriage prospects.

“You could be pretty every day.” She began.

I sipped bitter green tea but couldn’t restrain my curiosity. “Really? How?” I inquired.

I was then advised that my marriage prospects would improve if I ate 3 servings of green vegetables a day, took on "professional hair advice" (she found my hair dreadful – taking particular offense to the curl). I also needed to loose weight by running two hours every day (my 45 minutes a day wasn’t cutting it), wearing more polished clothing, and she advised me that I was "unfeminine." When I finally extracted myself from her office, my chin dropped from its proud angle, my shoulders slumped and I was deflated. Did all Koreans think that I was that hideous? I retreated to my own office and ran the conversation by my friend Cathy, whose laughter was so merry that I quickly discarded the seriousness of what was said and became merry about it myself.

“You could be pretty every day” became an incident that I recounted with relish and it provided an amazing number of chuckles – especially for my British co-teacher and the laughter handily carried me through several more incidents of this nature with her. A few Wednesdays later, I sat down for a class planning session and was immediately informed that I was a tomboy, that I lacked tenderness, and was "like a man." I emphatically replied that I was not (demonstrating my strong personality, that I suspect she actually objected to) and told her that in a US corporate workplace women are expected to behave more akin to men. She discounted my argument and heaped evidence on her own by pointing out that I was wearing slacks and a jean jacket and that I have short hair.

I patiently smiled through this for a few minutes until I lost my patience and asked, “Ms. Park, how would you feel if someone said that you are like a man?”

“Ha ha. That wouldn’t happen.” She laughed.

Undaunted, I pressed, “Would you like being equated to a man?

She laughed and conceded that she would not. I informed her that she was insulting me and asked her to stop.

She again laughed and said, "Oooh, I didn't realize that I was insulting you.” A very suspect response – because her whole line of conversation would be highly insulting to Korean women. I sighed and suggested that we get to work.

An American friend of mine dubbed these incidents “Korean bitch slaps.” I laughed while pondering: was this sort of behavior Korean?

My first theory was that my “co-teacher” was a product of the Old Korean ideals that were in conflict with Younger Korean ideals. But my younger Korean teaching friends, who were horrified by her behavior, assured me that this cannot be. I eventually concluded that in every culture there are, shall we say, aged, life-experienced females who love nothing more than the practice of giving unsolicited advice. And my co-teacher was one of those females.

My co-teacher’s pearls of wisdom also inspired me to begin the process of keenly observing Korean femininity and masculinity – subjects that I cannot yet write fairly about. Someday, I hope…

Anyway, the final jewel from my “co-teacher” was imparted in the final days of the semester when I pleaded busy in order to avoid a leisurely tea with her. She smiled and told me that she thought it was good that I was so busy because that would help me become thin – like her. I cocked my head at her, gave her a toothy smile and informed her that actually, I am just fine the way I am. And then I politely excused myself and turned away.

Hmmm….

Laura

PS: A picture of my two co-teachers playing a game of parking lot kickball… I’ll let you decide which is the British gentleman and which is the… shall we say, aged, life-experienced female who loves nothing more than the practice of giving unsolicited advice.

PS II: What did my Korean “co-teacher” kindly gift me for Christmas? A flat iron!!!