Little Monsters

My friend from work's story: When she was little she used to have a competition with her younger sister. They dipped their heads in a bucket of water to see who could hold their breath the longest. One time the little sister came very close to breaking their all time record, so my friend 'helped' by holding down the sister's head in the water. The little sister flailed her arms wildly and desperately while my friend 'encouraged' her to 'hang in there' a bit longer. Don't worry, the little sister survived. She's alive and is doing very well.
When I heard that story, I wondered why I never did anything like that. I was a little angel compared to my friend. Then I remembered an incident involving a very unfortunate grasshopper. When I was about seven or eight, Mom bought me a kitchen set. There were tiny pots and pans and they were made of tin so I could really cook something in them! So I arranged some bricks and lighted a candle in the middle as a stove. Then I put a pot on and filled it with water, leaves and some flowers. I'm going to make a lovely soup, I thought. But a soup is not complete without meat. So I caught a fat grasshopper from the backyard, shoved it in the pot and closed the lid. After a few minutes, I opened the lid. I didn't know what I expected to see, but what I saw was a very dead grass hopper, bobbing up and down grotesquely in the boiling water. My stomach turned and I suddenly realized what a horrible death I had given the poor insect. I don't remember what I did to it next. I really hope I gave it a proper burial. If you think kids are angels, think again.

Pronunciation Lesson 2

Last night we talked about electronics in the classroom. My students told me about the famous brands in Korea. When it comes to LG, they told me that it means 'gold star' or something that sounds very much like a rude word. I knew that they couldn't possibly mean that word and it was probably something else mispronounced. I rummaged through my brain frantically, trying to guess what the word was.
"Gold business?" was my first guess.
"No, no. Gold star. Penis."
"Yes. Penis." another student confirmed.
I think I blushed a bit. I began to panic. Then suddenly Ping! 'Venus' They were saying @#*% 'Venus'! I secretly heaved a big sigh of relief. I thought to myself, OK, guys. We've got a lot of work to do. More pronunciation lessons coming up next week.

Pronunciation Lesson 1

People who go abroad sometimes find that the locals can't pronounce, let alone remember, their names. This happens to my students here. Hyo Bin, Se Min, Hye Young, Chan Uk, and Siu Yin sound all the same to non-Asian locals. Some students persevere and keep their names. Others caved in to the pressure and adopt a western name for themselves. Sometimes the new name is a translation of the original name, other times its a soundalike. Thus Se Min becomes Simon, Sun Mee becomes Sunny, Chan Uk becomes Charles, and so on.
One day a new student came to me and said, "I've got an English name now. It's Leo."
"Oh, you do? Leo is a nice name."
"Thank you. It means 'liver' in Spanish. My Korean name means 'liver'."
I was a bit confused at this point (ngga mudeng). Leo means 'liver' in Spanish? Korean parents name their children 'liver'? Why on earth do they do that?? But all I said was, " OK, I'll write it down on the attendance list."
I wrote down the name and showed it to him to check the spelling. It turned out that his new name was 'Rio' and that indeed means 'river' in Spanish. (Aaah.., I see, I see... (Baru mudeng.) We have a problem with 'l' and 'r' nih.) When the words come within a context, it is easier guess the meaning than when they are not.
So the week after that we did some pronunciation practices. When it came to 'l' and 'r' I showed off with Ular melingkar di pagar Pak Umar. The oohs and wows from my students showed how impressed they were. Those who know me know that my Indo 'r' is pathetically embarassing, but my students didn't know that (:

Korean Fest

Seeing Double

I usually have my haircut at KYS hair salon. The price is ok and the hairdressers never tried to yank my hair off or scrape my scalp away (like some hairdressers did in other salons). There is one branch in the City and one near my home, so it's pretty convenient too. Last month I went to the City branch. I was greeted by a familiar face, by the owner didn't seem to recognize me. So I asked, "Don't you usually work at Burwood (branch)?"
"No, that's my twin," she said.
They looked exactly the same. Same hairstyle, same dress style, same face. Same occupation, same work place!

Spring

My azaleas and little pink flowers with black-berries.

Drummoyne Walk

To celebrate the coming of spring, we went for a walk along the coastline. I found this beautiful, strange tree. And these beautiful strange flowers.

Sasha came along as usual.

After a while, it got too hot for her and she refused to walk. Then the sun disappeared and she got all energetic and ran and jumped at all the joggers we passed.