Just another of day...

...full of questions.

My students today were full of questions today. Maybe it was the hot sunny weather that got their little brains pumping or maybe they're becoming clever enough to know how to veer me off course. At any rate, my 6:00 class was on fire today, shooting me right and left with questions about America, Americans, my family, being adopted, my biological parents etc...

It began with eye color. They wanted to know the eye color of Americans. I explained that there are generally blue, brown and green eyes but there are various shades which makes a broader spectrum. They asked if a mother who has blue eyes will automatically give birth to a blue eyed baby. Well of course I was about to draw a punnet?? square but then realized that would take forever to explain so I just said sometimes. I then told them my entire family has blue eyes and I am the only one with brown eyes because I am adopted. Well, this of course led to the most obvious question from sweet Alan and with the pursuit of truth in his face and conviction in his voice he asked, "teacher, uh, do your eyes, when you go to America, go blue??" It took me a second to realize this is not the time to laugh. Instead, I just said no, without laughing - without killing his curiosity.

As the students were listening so intently, he also asked me if my family hated me because I had brown eyes. At this point I noticed we weren't talking about calenders and months anymore and attempted to get the class back on track. I failed. Actually, I didn't care that much so we continued to talk about how Kimberly teacher looks Korean but can't speak the language and has a white skinned blue eyed family (GASP)!! Somehow the class managed to take up 45 minutes of talking before we played a game that I had promised them last week...good teacher huh??:)

Overall, it was a really good conversation and the children were very interested and perceptive of my story. I've never been pitied for being adopted by Koreans until recently when I learned the Korean equivalent - which I thought would make my life much easier to say "eeb yang" rather than pointing at my face saying, "yes, Korean, but, mother & father American, no hanguel (No Korean)" but today my students said I shouldn't use this word because it is sad and has a negative meaning. I tried to explain that it's not sad...that my birth parents were very young, unwed and probably would have been scorned by their own people for being in this particular situation. I also tried to explain that my "American" parents (yes, I've found i have to specify which parents I speak about even though I obviously have no clue who my birth parents are, nor do I consider them parents in any capacity) were unable to reproduce. I tried to tell them that I was happy I was adopted otherwise I wouldn't be the person I am! This of course gets very lost in translation when speaking to 11 year olds in a language they can hardly say the twelve months in...

Anyway, an interesting day of conversation to say the least. I'm sure they will rush home and tell their parents that mothers with blue eyes do not necessarily give birth to children with blue eyes and they'll all gasp and have a little chuckle over their kimchi and rice.