대 한 민 국!!!

Rock on, Korea won. Last night post game was pretty dope, celebrations in the streets, the entire country screaming as one each time they scored a goal. I didn't go downtown for the big hoopla, but I really wish I had, becauase I heard it was damn fun. And crazy big crowds are veeeery controlled in Korea, no violence, no breaking shit, no assholes spilling beer on your shoes....its the best place to have celebration riot, really.

Let's hope they can pull it off again next week! I'm ready for more nation wide public nuttiness.

Did you know that there was a baby boom in Korea 9 months after the 2002 World Cup? There is nothing like victory to get the love flowing!

So today I taught what I think just may be the funniest thing I have ever had to teach. In my afternoon class, we had a lesson about how to tie your shoes. Why is that funny? Because the students were all THIRD GRADERS. Yes, that's right. Third graders, three of them. And NONE of them knew how to tie their shoes.

Apparently, this is not all that uncommon in Korea. Kids just don't learn to tie their shoes. It's partially because of the popularity of shoes with Velcro and other snazzy methods of fastening. Ok, but there are still plenty of kids that wear lace shoes, and a surprising number of them don't know how to tie them. When they need their laces tied, they just find and adult or let them hang loose.

I am totally floored by this. And my students were floored when I told them that kids in the US learn to tie their shoes in Kindergarten or first grade. They told me that none of their friends or classmates knew how. Usually, I don't let my reactions show when my kids tell me things about Korea that I find shocking or strange, but I couldn't help it this time.

So, we had a shoe tying lesson right then and there. And you know what? Tying shoes is hard! It was so funny watching these 10 year old kids who I know to be totally mature and academically stellar fumbling awkwardly as they tried to "make the bunny run round the tree and through the hole." Yes, of course I used that method, is there any other way to learn it??

They were all able to successfully tie a bow, although not very well. I told them we would practice.

Why don't they learn this here? I suspect it may have something to do with the highly dependent relationship between parent and child that is part of Korean culture. Moms here are EXTREMELY controlling of their kids, and kids generally put loyalty to parents above all else. Korea does not encourage self-reliance the way North Americans do, so there isn't a push to teach kids to do things on their own. They don't usually get to make their own decisions as to what they want to do with their time, what they want to study in university, and in the past, who they wanted to marry. Most parents here do everything for their kids, and all the kids are expected to do is study and become succesful. As you can imagine, this results in some pretty spoiled brats that can drive you crazy as a teacher. Well, not always spoiled, but often helpless, where they expect you to do everything for them.

Like tie their shoes.