“I am very Chinese noodle.” It’s statements like these that make my job seem both totally futile and a complete joy. This comes from one of my advanced students as we sit in the ICT room, along with the rest of the budding actors and linguists who have come together on a Saturday afternoon to rehearse our adaptation of The Three Little Pigs. Sun-Mi asked me to be here for twelve though, typically, I’ve just had a message from her to say she won’t be here till two. Meanwhile I try to organise the Chinese noodle and his classmates into some semblance of order. It’s like herding cats. The line between not being able to understand me and ignoring my requests is a fine one that the students straddle to perfection.
Some of them are complaining of being hungry and I have no idea what I’m meant to do about that. Eventually I persuade enough of them to begin a performance and the other join in, so when Sun-Mi arrives I appear to be in charge of things. We sit around for a while longer and I’m really wondering why I’ve been asked to volunteer a good portion of my weekend for such an aimless activity. Sun-Mi’s responses to my questions about plans and intentions are vague, as are most of the conversations I have here. Around two-thirty at least some of the mysteries are solved in the form of a delivery of noodles from the local Chinese take-away. We eat (which it is now clear was part of a plan that everyone knew about, except me) and then begin making props for our play.
Sun-Mi has bought, begged and borrowed a variety of craft materials but after a brief discussion it’s agreed that we need to go to scavenge a few more things; large cardboard boxes from the local electrical goods store, sticks, bricks and straw. We split into two groups and I can tell without understanding the conversation that In-Hee is insisting that he is in my group. I go along with the decisions, whatever they might be, and follow everyone outside.
It’s a beautiful, bright winter day. My jumper, short wool skirt and thick tights are enough to deal with the chill that is starting to grip Namhae, though I may have decided against three inch heels with ankle straps if I had known I was going to spend the afternoon climbing through hedges and trailing through country lanes with half a dozen fourteen year old boys. The school backs onto a field, as do most buildings in the town, and a small delegation from our party approaches the crouched figures busy at work planting garlic. A few minutes later we are the proud owners of a bundle of rice straw which the boys carefully stash by the roadside.
We stroll along chatting about nothing in very broken English and I stop fretting about working the weekend and relax into the slow pace of life in the country. I ask my students questions that had often occurred to me as I walked around the town – what is this building? why is that there? – and though the answers are hardly clear and concise, I feel as though I’m a bit more part of the community than I was before.
I ask about the very modern and quite beautiful round building that we are approaching as we pass the bus terminal. In-Hee tells me that the fourth floor is a church and the fifth floor is his home. It’s then that I realise with some trepidation that this is where we are heading.
Six of us squeeze into the lift to the top floor and arrive at a front door. In-Hee lifts a lid on a key pad cover and taps in a code; the door unlocks and we enter a small shoe-filled hallway. I curse my shoes once again, their fiddly little buckles mean I am still struggling half crouched as In-Hee’s mother arrives to welcome me inside. The rest of the boys have already dived in and dispersed. I am left with a woman I’ve never met before who is clearly flustered at having not only an unexpected visitor, but one who doesn’t speak Korean.
They have a dog, a Yorkshire Terrier, which seems to have recently returned from a jog as it is dressed in dog-sized sports wear. It is manic and demands my attention which is good as I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with myself. In-Hee has disappeared into the kitchen to find items to support his role as the Good Wolf (it is a very loose adaptation) and I am left to converse with his mother. She’s an English teacher at the local academy so we do manage a few exchanges as she peels and slices enough fruit to feed a troupe of monkeys. She tells me that she’s really happy that her son has finally taken an interest in learning English and it’s because of me. I’m flattered and saved from my embarrassment by the boys’ return to the living room. We all sit on the wooden floor around a low table and eat the Korean pears, satsumas and persimmons with little forks.
The flat is crowded with toys and other family possessions. Many things would not be out of place in any home in
Though it is a pleasant visit I’m relieved when we finally leave and wish I was more adept in social situations. We meander slowly back to school, stopping to collect our straw which has been purloined by some other passer-by and the boys have to beg another bundle. An old man who happened to be passing harangues the boys. He is convinced they plan to use the straw to commit some sort of rural vandalism. Once they’ve escaped from his rantings they tell me that they understand that his anger is not about them but is part of the anger many farmers feel because of the current low price of rice and the high price of oil, making it tough for all these land-dependent people. I feel helpless as the responsible adult, unable to stand in the boys’ defence.
Sun-Mi’s group return ten minutes after us, with yet more straw, a few bricks and twigs and three enormous cardboard boxes. We spend a few more hours making quite passable pig’s houses, and yet another half hour rehearsing with the new props.
It’s dark when Sun-Mi drops me off at my flat, leaving me with a carrier bag full of sweet potatoes – half of the gift she was given by the parents of one of her students. I check my emails and find that I’ve been invited to go out for dinner tonight with my fellow ex-pats; they met ten minutes ago and I’ve missed my chance to contact them and find out where. I’m too exhausted anyway. It’s not the effort of teaching or working at the weekend or even of building houses for little pigs. I’m exhausted from living in a state of constant spontaneity; when communication is so poor that I’m never sure what’s going on and what’s going to happen next. At 9pm I’m in bed, feeling very Chinese noodle.
No comments:
Post a Comment