Subject Response to Bearded Foreigners in Korean Elementary Schools: A study

(Originally printed February 3, 2009)

Since I'm nearing the end of my contract I decided to grow out my beard.

Figure A

Since beards are a rare thing among Koreans, the sight of a bearded white person is understandably a subject of great interest to Korean children. So far the students have done a good job communicating their feelings about my beard to me in English.

• Responses, ranked from most favorable to least:

"Teacher! Beautiful!" (student gives the thumbs up sign)
Translation Mr. Christiana, I think a beard looks very flattering on you.

"Oh! Teacher!" (student rubs own face)
Translation Mr. Christiana, I am surprised to see you have grown a beard.

"Teacher! Why?"
Translation Mr. Christiana, I am confused as to why you have chosen to grow a beard.

"Teacher! Cut!" (student makes a scissor cutting motion across own jaw)
Translation Mr. Christiana, I do not like your beard and feel it would be in your best interest to shave it.

"Teacher! Blech!" (student pantomimes vomiting)
Translation Mr. Christiana, I don't care for your beard.

• People they've compared me to, ranked from most flattering to least:

Wolverine

Robinson Crusoe

"Kentucky Grandfather" (Col. Sanders)

Figure B

I Hate Fish

Or at least I do since coming to Korea. Why? It has a little to do with the art of Korean food preparation. Specifically, the fact that there isn't any.

Don't get me wrong, I love Korean food. But it lacks finesse. There are two kinds of cooking methods here. One is to grill every item separately. The other is to dump a bunch of shit in a big pot. The end.

What does this have to do with fish? Well when I say "dump shit into a pot", I don't mean "cut and dice some things up and put them into a pot". No, if you're making a fish stew, you grab a fish, some veggies, and maybe a few little octopuses and dump the whole damn thing into a pot of spicy oil and boil it. Bones and all.

More than once I've had the roof of my mouth pierced by a tiny fish bone I somehow missed in the 15 minute process of cleaning out a square of meat so I could eat lunch. But the last straw was this:


That's jawbone, with dozens of sharp pointy teeth sticking out of it. That was ladled into my bowl. Seriously, how long does it take to remove that from the fish before cooking it? Two seconds? Come on!

Thus every fish dish I'm served is met with a level of disdain once reserved only for tofu.

Home is Where the Spam Is

Last week was the Korean holiday of Chuseok, which is best explained as a kind of Korean Thanksgiving. It's a time for venerating ones ancestors, going home to be with your family, and enjoy lots of food. I love it because it meant I got a five day weekend.

But what does one give as a gift on such a holiday? You'll never guess, not in a million years.


SPAM GIFT SET! Man oh man, do Koreans (and the Japanese) love their Spam. And not in an ironic, hey-isn't-this-funny-I-got-you-Spam kind of way. It's a genuine treat, it's not cheap, and it's acceptable to give as a present.

How popular are these sets? Prepare to be grossed out.


An entire row at CostCo devoted to them. Koreans were lining up to grab these. They do all kinds of things with it. Put it in with pasta. Put in in their sushi rolls. In Japan, grilled Spam on a stick is a staple at convenience stores. Spam on a stick!

If they only knew. I tried explaining to some Japanese friends one time why I was so amused by their regular consumption of Spam, but I was so flummoxed by the widespread use of a food product that serves mainly as a punch line in the US that I failed to get my point across.

Kim Jong Ill?

You're welcome for the headline, New York Post.

North Korea and its Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il, have fascinated me long before I moved within a few hours of the DMZ. But now that I'm here, things are getting even more interesting.

A week or so back, I read an article by a professor who claims Kim Jong Il has been dead since 2003. Sounds crazy but it goes to show how little anyone knows about the inner workings of NK. This guy could be dead and we wouldn't know.

Then a few days ago, an article detailing the mysterious absence of the little dictator popped up. He failed to appear at a major rally and apparently he's in ill health. Now the US and China are meeting to plan for possible destabilization just to the north of me. Weee!

School Safety

For a couple weeks during summer break I ran a small English class for some students. This is pretty standard and there were a few other classes running at the same time as mine, so even though school was closed, there was no shortage of cute, rambunctious Korean children tearing through the hallways.

I thought this was pretty harmless, and not seeing myself as a stuffy disciplinarian, I was often racing around with them. Then one day there was a deafening series of crashes during class. It sounded like someone was smashing through the walls of the school.

Turns out that's exactly what it was.


This is the hallway outside my classroom, and that is a giant hole in the wall. Workers were replacing the dumbwaiter system that brings food from the cafeteria to the classes on the upper floors. And following the universal law of construction workers, they tore the school open and then took the rest of the week off.

This hall is on the third floor. And as I already mentioned, the school was still swarming with kids. But as you can see, the workers took the proper precautions in making the construction site child proof. Nothing keeps children away like a couple of carefully placed empty bookshelves.

Thus I found myself instantly aging from fun loving young teacher to overprotective old man. "Quit running you damn kids, do you want somone to fall out of the damn school?"