My life as a fish

“Are you trying to undermine the Korean economy?” the indignant Korean parent demanded like some kind of self-righteous Jacobin interrogation.

“I, uh, don’t think so, ma’am.  We just talked about whether hybrid cars are a good deal or not… but I’m pretty sure we concluded they’d be good for the environment.”

“Well, my husband is an engineer for Hyundai and he makes hybrid cars, you don’t just tell my daughter that Korean cars are worthless!”

This, just 2 hours after Mike, the head teacher at my academy, interrupted my paperwork to sit me down for a little ‘chat.’

“It seems like there’s a problem with one of your classes.  A mom called and she’s furious about something you said.”

Which class?

“Minsa Essay.”  The highest level class we offer at the school.

My heart dropped through to my stomach.  If there’s one truth in teaching private academies in Korea, it’s that moms are to be feared and appeased like the Golden Horde.  Ignoring their (usually unreasonable) demands risks certain Khan-style career razing and pillaging, or at the very least a massive bureaucratic headache.  Class content needs some sort of tweak? or overhaul?  “Moms want it” is fiat, plain and simple. Enough for any shrewd teacher to ignore at his/her own peril.

“I know, we both teach the same class.  I even asked them if they weren’t sure it was me…”

“Well what did I say? Who had the problem?”

“Can’t say, they don’t want to isolate the kid unless its been resolved.  Look, don’t worry about it.  I’ll make sure that they go through me.  But she’s been demanding to come talk to you or call you up, apparently she’s fluent.”

Gulp.

Alright, its cool.  I calm myself down.  Though it’s hard to concentrate on grading when I’m mulling over the possibility of a talk with the president of the academy, or worse, the mom herself.

Of course, my own hubris played a role in what I found to be a much larger chink in my armor than I previously thought.  I’d never gotten a complaint from a parent, my kids love me, I always do a lot of preparation for the advanced classes and leave thoughtful comments on their papers.  At least I thought I had the reputation of being a stellar teacher.  But this incident was putting my 8 months of hard work in jeopardy…

Who was the student with the problem?  Why didn’t she just address me personally?  I couldn’t seem to escape the thoughts of my favorite history teacher getting the axe over mildly inflammatory racial remarks.  Was it the time I mentioned prostitution as a moral crime?  Is that even offensive? The self-doubt crept in.

It started to affect my other classes.  I didn’t have the pep I usually have, dreading the conversation that assuaged my curiosity but killed my cat.  Minding my own business at my desk, Jae Mo, one of the head administrators at the school, solemnly walked up to me and told me what I accepted I would eventually hear, “A parent has a problem with one of your classes and wants to speak with you.  Can you stop what you’re doing and deal with this?”

My heart started racing – be polite, be firm, don’t get defensive…

“What you are telling my daughter Su-yeon in class really offend me.  You told her that women shouldn’t work!  That they only have jobs as nurses and teachers and dancers – I’m a doctor!  What kind of garbage are you filling her head with?”

Of course it was Su-yeon with the problem.  One time in class to make a point I went around the room asking the males and females if they’d consider staying at home.  Most of them just said, nah not for me.  She gave me a sneer and retorted, “Do I look like a housewife to you?”

So it didn’t exactly surprise me that her mom was a femi-nazi.  I backpedalled.

“No ma’am, I think there was some miscommunication.  Actually, we just said that women didn’t used to work in the 1960s, but we discussed whether it was a good thing that its changing. I assure you, ma’am, I don’t tell them to believe anything, all the opinions come from the kids themselves and we all agreed it was a good thing.”

“Well what about this business with hybrid cars…”

It went on and on for another 10 minutes, finally ending with her saying she was coming to school in half an hour to see the articles herself after I offered to send them home with her daughter on Friday.  We hung up, and apparently I was a little shaken.

Eun-young, the vice president, offered her sympathy.  “Anything I can do to help?”  Yeah, get this woman off my case!  I mean, offended over hybrid cars?  Or just stating the fact that women used to not work very often?  I went back to my desk, frantically searching for the articles I knew I saved in one of the stacks of printer paper on my desk.

– §§ –

You know, sometimes I’ll stumble upon Konglish idioms that I find way more amusing than the standard English ones.  My buddy Mr. Park likes to use the word “shoot,” as in when he says, “It’s no fun to shoot on her stomach.”  Pretty descriptive.

My kids have another great one.  The second I walked into my early class today, the rambunctious Stanley (yes, they all choose names common to Western Pennsylvania steel workers.  I’m definitely imagining his last name is Burkowski next Thursday…) proclaims, “Teacher, guess what?  I won first place in my school’s English competition!”

Swelling with pride and thinking to myself that maybe something actually did get through to him after all these last 6 months, I congratulated him, raising my open palm for a high five.

“Haha!  I fished you!  Fishing!”  And he proceeds to cast his invisible rod in my direction, revolving his hand counter-clockwise like he’s reeling me in, hook in cheek, towards his desk.

Oh right.  April Fool’s Day.  It wasn’t intricate, but it also wasn’t the last time I got an ol’ fashioned fishin’ today.

I had just suffered the ignominy of having pretty much everyone in the room nosing into my professional business and asking, “Hey, is there a problem with a parent?”  I felt vulnerable.  Then the bell rung.  I was still searching when Ji-yeon, my desk-neighbor, struck up conversation.

“I heard you had a problem with parent? Yeah, you look really stressed out.  But don’t worry, it was me…” she stated mystically off-hand.

The comment perplexed me.  Is that some sort of weird Asian metaphor?  As in, you were the student once and now look at you?  Or as in we are all the parent in some way?  I wasn’t in the mood for some Buddhist shit right now.

But you know you’re in too deep when you don’t even recognize your own punk’d moment.  Tunnel vision’s a bitch.

She realized I didn’t get it.  “Yeah, it was me… as in I was the one on the phone.”  Laughter erupted.

It was then I realized that pretty much the entire office was crowded around my desk studying me to see what I’d do.  It was like a scene from some sick Wizard of Oz parody: there was Eun-young, Jae-mo, Janet with her camera.  Mike was Jane Goodall.  I was the ape.  Or maybe the fish.

Mike, with a grin that I wouldn’t be generous enough in describing as ’shit-eating,’ patted me on the back and gave me a “you da’ man” for being a good sport in the post-punk’d letdown.  Finally stepping back, I realized I was the victim of probably the most elaborate and twisted pranks I’ve ever been a part of.  It also gave me something to occupy myself with for the next 8 months as I plot my revenge.  And I don’t intend to catch me no minnow.

~ by David Ogles on April 2, 2008.