Osan

I'll admit I was a bit worried about this past weekend's English camp.  The very indirect trip from Yeongju to Osan took me nearly 5 hours to complete.  2.5 hours by bus up to Seoul, and then another 2.5 hours via subway/train back down to Osan.  I probably could have ridden a bicycle directly from Yeongju to Osan in a third of the time.  But of course, as any foreigner living in South Korea will tell you, that makes way too much sense.

I was worried because I was the lone American attending the event.  In essence, I was a celebrity.  I was a Hollywood star.  Rich.  Good looking.  Completely foreign and appealing to these teenagers.  One student even told me I looked like Jim Caviezel in the Passion of the Christ.  A bit of a stretch, but I took it as a compliment.

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I gave a power point presentation introducing American culture.  Before I started, I asked the students what American people look like.  "Blonde hair.  Blue eyes."  What do American's eat?  "Hamburgers.  Pizza."  I was concerned that they had all been misguided by everything that is broadcast out of the US, but what I found was that these young Asians were generally grounded in their ideas of Americans.

 For example, one girl asked me if all American's have a trampoline at their house.

What?

But in actuality, these student's, and probably most Korean's in general, believe that life in America is exactly like it is on the Lil Wayne videos.  And why wouldn't they?  That's all they see.  More accurately, that's all we put out.

And when I say put out, I mean it in every sense of the word.