This is going to sound ridiculous, but one of my dreams is to move to South Korea after a career in journalism in the States and teach English to the thousands of Asians there who seem to be willing to do anything to learn to speak like a real thug chillin’ in da streetz of Brooklyn, yo. This may have something to do with my year-old kpop obsession, in which case I’d have to admit that I’ve let my interests in fob culture go way too far. Therefore, I’d prefer to think that my dream has nothing to do with my undying respect and admiration for Epik High, or my pledge to watch every single video there is of Taeyang performing “I Need a Girl” (LOVE that song!), or the fact that I’d probably be willing to marry a beautiful Korean idol in a heartbeat, even if I didn’t know a thing about him (note: this is an exaggeration, created for the purpose of, well, exaggerating – what else?) Anyhow, a love of the Korean culture can’t be the only thing that drives my determination to teach English, because then I might as well break into a plastic surgery institute and then join the ranks of Korean celebrities who are permitted to shake their butts onstage only because their physical appearances would give them A+’s in beauty school. No, what really makes me want to do would have to do with the following:
1.) I really love English. Seriously, I do. Despite its quirks and rules and stupid little “i before e except after c’s,” I love being able to express my feelings in what appears to be the world’s most popular language. The US of A may be losing its power little by little, but language is much stronger than a nation. No matter how many World Wars break out, people will always need to be able to communicate and English is so widespread that I may as well teach it to those who want to speak the language. Since every other Korean song I listen to nowadays has a bit of English (and in some cases, Engrish) in it, I may as well teach listeners to be able to distinguish between which phrases in their favorite songs make sense (“I’m so sorry but I love you; it’s all a lie”) and which don’t (“number one man scandaling asldkjafslkjdf bling bling.”) Make sense? No? Oh well.
2.) I want to live in an Asian country, but unfortunately for me, the silly Asian girl who refused to go to Chinese school when she was four, I don’t know any Asian languages. I once attempted to teach myself Chinese, and let’s just say that after sitting my butt down for five minutes in an attempt to figure out how to write the characters for “me” and “you” and my very own Chinese name, I gave up. (There goes what could’ve been my success in getting revenge from all the Chinese merchants who scared me into paying them ridiculous clothes last summer – I can’t haggle to save my life, and without a relative to help me out, I usually just pay whatever the seller demands at first – read: 90000000% of the original price, oh fuck my sorry life.) I’d love to learn Japanese, but for some reason the language simply doesn’t appeal to me as much as Chinese and Korean do (this lack of interest applies to Vietnamese, Cantonese, Cambodian, Thai, Filipino, and whatever else I have failed to include. Sorry if this makes me sound racist, but there you go.) I’ve taught myself how to read Korean, which is no large feat, but bit by bit I’ll get better, I think. Hopefully, anyway. I guess I can always study an Asian language in college, no?
3.) After keeping up with my pledge, and watching 5000 performances of ‘I Need a Girl,’ I realized that although each performance is nothing short of H O T, I really don’t like it when the word “girl” is mispronounced as “girrr.” It annoys me, even though I’d probably mangle up “yeoboseyo~” and make it sound like “yuhbuhuhuhbananawhuh?” or something (yes, I’m lame; yes, you can tell me that; no, I won’t care.) At least “girr” sounds something like what’s it’s supposed to, I guess…but still, I’d really like to be able to help someone brush up on his/her pronunciation skills. I think it’d be fun: I could be sitting at a desk next to some girl in dark-rimmed glasses, saying, “BAAAAAAANG! bay-eh-eh-eh-ehng!” while she attempts to emulate my voice. It’d be nice to make a difference in the life of someone who wants to learn something I can teach – though what my parents will say to being forced to deal with the thought that they’ve given birth to a child who won’t be bringing home a salary with at least 5 zero’s trailing behind in annually, I’d prefer not to think about.
Anyhow, I just read over what I’ve written down and I feel even more ridiculous than I did before. I think I’ll stop vomiting words and phrases on the internet before everyone realizes just how silly I really am – why bother to begin this blog with a bunch of “deep, depressing” text entries if I’m just going to ruin the whole effect by talking about a dream that probably isn’t the most realistic thing a human being has come up with? I’ll stop here so I can go back and re-evaluate the English of Korean pop idols and dream about which ones I’d like to teach English to while doing so.
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