Teachers' Day

I missed half of my classes today because, donning my new suit, I was the English-speaking MC at the inauguration ceremony for a new nongovernmental organization called Teachers Without Borders. It was really exciting to be a part of the event. There were a couple ambassadors there and representatives from Korean and foreign government departments, academic institutions, and nongovernmental organizations. A couple of the major newspapers and TV stations had reporters there. Here's a photo that was picked up by one of the news agencies. Can you find me?During the ceremony, I read from an English script after the Korean MC spoke, but it was a little confusing because there were a couple last-minute changes before the ceremony. There was another change right in the middle of it while the Chilean ambassador was speaking, so the Korean MC and I were trying to sort out which point on my script needed to be moved with which point on his script. We were doing this very quietly, or so I thought, but at one point, the ambassador came to a complete stop and just stared at me. I thought it was because we were causing too much of a distraction, so I nudged the Korean MC, and then we both stood very quietly until the end of the ambassador's speech.

At the end I asked the Korean MC if we made too much noise. He didn't know but asked if I thought we should apologize to the ambassador. I suggested that he ask one of the coordinators of the event. It turns out that the ambassador was speaking in French (I didn't even notice because I was too worried about the line-up change) and expected me to interpret!

I was just reading from a script, but some other people there actually thought I was interpreting what was being said in Korean. When we took a break for lunch, several people came up to me and told me that my interpretation was very good and wanted to know how I learned to understand Korean so well. That made me laugh. I confessed that what I understand in Korean is very limited. I didn't tell them how limited--colors, shapes, numbers, food, the announcements on the subway, and various kid expressions like "Cool!" and "I've gotta pee!"

May 15th is Teachers' Day here in Korea. Kids give gifts and cards to their teachers. Apparently the gift-giving can get quite extravagant and competitive, so some schools are closed on Teachers' Day in an effort to curb bribing the teachers for better grades. A day off is probably the best gift for a teacher anyway. My school wasn't closed, and I received some nice Teachers' Day gifts from my students--including department store gift certificates, a Pizza Hut gift certificate, a fancy Japanese bodywash set, a silk wallet, a pair of socks, a lot of chocolate, and several hand-made cards.