2 things I really enjoy about my job...

...1. My Monday night adult class, & 2. reading and correcting students English diaries.

Tonight in my adult class we discussed family. Tom, one of the tallest and broadest Korean's I've ever met, made attempts to explain how his father had two fathers and one was an uncle. This sounded a bit incestual to me, but the Korean family system is so different than ours that I figured there was a logical explanation. From what I understood, I learned that in Korea (or at least traditionally and in the past) the first born son was so important because he was able to continue the family line through his genes and blood and blah blah blah, but if the eldest son (and wife) were for some reason unable to pro-create, they would at times take one of their younger brothers sons into their home and raise it as their own so that they continued the bloodline through the eldest brother. This happened in Tom's father's case, he was taken in by his Uncle to continue the bloodline therefore making his father also his uncle. And did I mention he was 11 when this happened? I tried to put myself in this situation and it seemed very strange.

Okay, so I'm not sure if I am explaining this well, or if it's accurate, or if it even make sense...but that's kind of how I'm digesting it all in my head right now and I'm a bit confused. I often learn so much from my adult class but because their English isn't fluent we encounter the overused phrase (but great movie) lost in translation. I feel that now. I only understand slivers of a concept or a part of Korean culture that they try to explain. Language barriers can be such a pain in the ass.

Anyway, after class I was grading an English diary and the topic was, "Today was my sex-linkage time". Ann continued to explain how her parents had "lost their minds with her". I was very confused about what "sex-linkage time" was so I asked my Korean co-teacher Jenny. Jenny explained that in Korean, the word has two meanings and when Ann typed it into her little dictionary the word "sex-linkage" popped up as the first answer, rather then "self-examination" which would have been the correct choice. This too could have been a very awkward diary entry to be given to and graded by the foreign teacher, "Today was my self-examination time". Haha, anyway, even though it didn't make the sentence correct, I understood she was going through more of a self-assesment b/c she had pissed off her parents and felt guilty.

Ahh, teaching.