Koreans, karate, and paper airplanes.

by Anne

For some reason, I got it into my head that I wanted to go to South Korea. In case you people don't know where it is (and I didn't until about four weeks before I moved here, so I'm not judging), it's that little fleck of land to the west of Japan that everyone thinks is a rather unfortunate part of China.

Let me tell you... that and every other American assumption of Korean culture are WRONG.

Let me illustrate:

American thought: Korean students are incredibly intelligent, excel at everything they do, and are the prime example of respect.

Korean reality: Korean students come to school every day and memorize the correct responses, eat dinner, and then go to another school, where they memorize some more. They DO excel, because they are beaten when they don't, and well... the respect thing... maybe they are, but just not to me... like the other day, when they played, "Who can hit Royster Teacher with their textbook most accurately?" (They did, in fact excel at that, although, they excelled more at "Who can hit Royster Teacher with their pencil case?")

Although, I do think my favorite memory happened on Wednesday, when the students were handed a stack of review papers for their upcoming English exam.

They quickly became paper airplanes, which, of course, dissolved into a game of (you guessed it) "Who can hit Royster Teacher with their paper airplanes most accurately?"

I was proud of myself, though: based on a decade of my own preemptive paper airplane practice, I already knew which paper airplanes even had a hope of hitting me. So, when I saw that one kid knew to sacrifice size for strength, I prepared myself.

The paper airplane was the kind with the double-folded wings... and, in true American-assumption style, I determined it looked surprisingly like a jet-fighter.

I watched the kid launch it, I watched its perfect aim, I watched it sail flawlessly through the air, and then... I surprised even myself: my hand shot into the air and closed around the airplane, without me breaking eye-contact from its creator.

I felt my ninja powers finally emerging from the dormant state they had maintained for the past twenty-two years.

As I heard the paper crumple and the gasp of the (finally) impressed class, there was a pang of regret inside me. I had just crumpled one of the most beautiful paper airplanes I had ever seen... the kind I had never had the dedication to make myself.

I opened my hands and looked at it, vaguely aware of the continuing "whoops" of impressed children around me. I smoothed its perfect wings, and I couldn't help myself. I walked up to the student, who hung his head, waiting for my reprimand, but I couldn't do it.

I handed it back to him and said, "This is a good paper airplane. I've never seen one fly so straight."

The confusion that crossed his face was still there when the class president started walking around, collecting the airplanes to throw them away before their regular teacher returned to class.

That face may never be the same.