::A Geek in Korea::

Kirk: Ah, come on Luanne, you know what this is.

Luanne: Kirk, I don’t know what it is.

Kirk: [sighs] It could not be more simple, Luanne. You want me to show this to the cat, and have the cat tell you what it is? ‘Cause the cat’s going to get it.

Luanne: I’m sorry, I’m not as smart as you, Kirk. We didn’t all go to Gudger College. [timer dings]

Kirk: It’s dignity! Gah! Don’t you even know dignity when you see it?

Luanne: Kirk, you’re spitting.

Kirk: Okay, genius, why don’t you draw dignity.

[she does so] [everyone gasps in recognition -- we can't see it, however]

Hibbert: Worthy of Webster’s.

From Simpsons [4F04]“A Milhouse Divided”

I’m taking over for a teacher for this month while she helps middle school students prepare for their big midterm evaluations. Right now I teach the highest level elementary school class instead of the middle school students until the tests are finished. Since I am teaching their book for the first time, I went a little bit faster that normal. We had five minutes left in class before the bell rang.

The other foreign teacher that also teaches the class will play a game of Pictionary when the class is close to finishing. I usually don’t play any games in my classes, but they asked me to choose words from their vocabulary book and volunteered to draw them on the board for the rest of the students to guess. My director had been circling around, peeking in classes to make sure they didn’t get out of class early or waste time, so I was in a bind.

The students said it was my choice for words. I decided that I was going the route of every pictonary game I’ve ever played, where you get those impossible words you can never draw. The first word I picked for a student was “Transparent.” How do you draw something you are supposed to see through? It’s an idea and a property more than a thing, which makes it extra difficult.

The student who was drawing was able to see the Korean word. She knew what it was, and had a great example with a glass of water versus a glass of milk, but it was too hard for anyone to ever guess. Once the students gave up, we worked on the opposite word “opaque”, as well as how to put it into a sentence. The students said they didn’t know the English word, so they wanted to limit my words to things they had to memorize in an upcoming test.

The students, undaunted by my mean word choice, handed me another vocabulary book and opened it to a random page. I had to pick something from THAT page this time. Hilariously, the word “naked” was on their list of choices. The person that went up to the board drew a person with no shirt on with a belly button, then got embarrassed. No one that knew the word would SAY it in English or Korean.

As the bell was ringing to be dismissed, they learned the expression “in your birthday suit.” They thought it was a very funny expression. I explained that on your first birthday, you arrived with no clothes on, so being naked is your “first birthday suit”. They understood it after that.

Is this cruel, possibly, however, it is amusing to see how the students tackle an interesting problem of language like words that aren’t suitable for drawing.

To get meta for a moment:

According to my stat logs, the words “nude Korean”, and “Korean nude” are the number one and two search results for this blog. Naturally, I expect this particular anecdote will only increase my page count. Oddly, my number three search result is “Cowon D2“, which doesn’t involve nudity whatsoever.