seminar

We had our little seminar today for mother's of current and prospective students. As I anticipated, there was not much for me to do. Despite this fact, I still had to show up to the convention center where it was held at 9am, a full two hours before it even started, for no good reason. I honestly just stood there and drank coffee.


In time I did have to perform the one task that was required of me, which was to be a foreigner. Unfortunately for me, I had to do this outside, and it was cold today. I had to stand at the entrance, with a Korean coworker, and greet the moms as they came in. For 45 minutes I had to stand there, saying "hello" over and over again, and you know something? Not a single one of them even looked at me. Seriously, not a one.

For the first ten minutes or so I gave your normal, "Hello and welcome" with a smile on my face. After ten minutes of nobody responding or even acknowledging me, I decided to ratchet it up a notch, to see if I could elicit any kind of reaction. So I began to say it a little firmer, "HELLO AND WELCOME GOOD MORNING." But still, nothing. After a while of this I really began to be amused, and began laying it on really thick. "HELLO AND WELCOME THANK YOU FOR COMING JUST THIS WAY." Not even that worked. They would just look at their feet as they walked by me, then acknowledged the Korean.

After 45 minutes of standing in the cold and being ignored, I hung out in a cafe inside the convention center. Later, after the seminar, all the moms came down and were treated to a free cup of coffee in the cafe. My boss asked me and my fellow foreigner coworker to walk to each table of moms and tell them how happy we were that they could come. I figured that this was my chance, there was no way they could ignore me.

I walked to the first table, just two moms. I stood there and bowed slightly. "THANKYOUSOMUCHFORCOMING!" I said, and smiled. Barely an acknowledgement.

I moved on, the next table having 5 moms. "SO GOOD TO SEE YOU. THANK YOU FOR COMING." They didn't even flinch.

It went on like this, most of them not even making eye contact with me. It was weird.

Korea is weird like that when it comes to foreigners. It's a rude culture. To them, if you're not Korean, you just don't get treated the same. Everybody is that way here, especially the kids. When you think of the stereotypical Korean student, it's a polite kid who is respectful and diligent. And many of them are that way, when a Korean teacher is around. But with a foreigner, they see it differently. Some of these kids are the rudest and most disrespectful people I've ever met. They'll swear in class, swear at me, and I'll tell them I know what they're saying but it doesn't matter. They wouldn't dream of doing that shit to a Korean teacher.

So it doesn't surprise me that their moms ignored me.