As the designated darkie for much of Korea I am sometimes called upon to do or explain Black culture to the ignorant. Now if you are ignorant; and I am in a great mood, I have no problem in learning you about the African-American experience in postindustrial America. But sometimes children the Koreans expect a certain level of coonery from me that I am not comfortable with. This causes much consternation in my employers as some of them expected Flavor Flav but got Louis Farrakhan instead.
My first job in Korea was at a school called International Sesamee with Cunt Lee and gay husband. Well Cunt Lee would rarely speak to us because she was embarassed at how poorly she spoke English; even though she supposedly had a MA in Education from Arizona State University, so she would have one of her revolving cast of minions(the school probably had a 600% employee turnover rate) speak to the foreign staff. So one day the school manager comes up to me about an open class for the parents. Now at the school/plantation I was suppose to refer to all the Koreans as Mr. or Mrs. Lee,Kim etc. So I insisted on being called by my last name as well.
Stupid Minion: Mike I need to talk to you
Me : Who?
SM : You, I need to talk to you?
Me : What's my name?
SM : O.k. Harris
Me : Thank you Mr. Kim please continue
They refused to say Mr. Harris and that shit would happen 5x a day. Then he would say something stupid like do you breakdance? Now, children Black people stopped breakdancing in 1984 when it reached its nadir with this movie.
After Shaba Doo was finished with it we never wanted to see a giant radio or another piece of refrigerator cardboard again.
Me :So when the mothers come in to meet their children's English teacher you would
like for me to poplock and do a windmill?
SM :Yes
Me :No. How about buck dancing or ">hambone
SM :I don't understand, do you know rap song parents think it cutie
Me : Really, you think parents want their children to learn a rap song?
SM : yes very cutie
Now I can smell coonery a mile away and i wouldn't have had a problem if everyone had to do ethnically stereotypical shit.Hey Irishman we are going to need you to ">Riverdance and sing "When Irish Eyes are Smiling" . New Zealand girl you have the option of doing a traditional Maori wardance or ">castrating a sheep with your teeth.
Being the good employee that I am I embarked on a mission to teach 5 year olds a rap song.To do this I selected the greatest rap song in the history of rap music. That's right children.
\
You have not lived until you have heard 15 Korean 5 year olds sing "you can just eat me out" at the top of their lungs. So everyday my boss would ask me how the song is going and if I was practicing. I said of course Mr.Kim. A week before the performance he asked to see the performance and I tried to sort of muffle the opening "motherfucking mouth" but he caught it and said the song had bad language. I said really but lot's of singing for the children and rapping for me.It was later decided that I shouldn't teach any open classes.
o.O Wow. I take my hat off to you, sir. That was brilliant. You should have filmed it, I would have loved to see that on Youtube. (You could blur out the kiddies faces, they're innocents, but way to stick it to your boss.)
ReplyDeleteactually I feel bad that wasn't professional of me. whatever problems I had with management should have never spilled over into the classroom.
ReplyDelete