7 Words You Can't Say in Korea

I have been in Korea for about fifteen months. I mainly hang around with kids and spend the majority of my time explaining what English words mean. I have encountered a bunch of words/phrases that don't translate very well and I thought I might share them with you. Some of these I feel like need some explanation, but some of them are evident why they are hard to explain to children that don't speak English:

7. Sea of Japan
(This doesn't exist in Korea. I have shown my older kids atlases with the Sea of Japan and they don't understand. Historically, Japan is evil and they refer to this body of water as the East Sea and seeing it refered to as the Sea of Japan blows young minds. When I say that everyone in America would refer to it as the Sea of Japan I am met with mouths agape and utter amazement at how stupid we are for thinking that Japan owns that Sea. Fucking Japs.)

6. Puebloan
If you can get American students to pronounce this word I am proud of you. To get Korean kids to pronounce it is amazing. If you can explain that they are an indigenous people of the American Southwest and you can make Korean kids understand you - you are brilliant...

5. motherfucker
I was asked about this word after a student had watched 'Die Hard 1' on TV ("Yipee-Kiyaiyeah muthafucka!")the previous weekend. I didn't even know where to begin with this word. I just said it is a bad thing to call someone and if he ever said it again I would kick him out of class.

4. birth control
I tried my hardest to explain this one - but I found that it just lead to the hardest word to explain to young children ever (see number one.)

3. Catholicism
Jesus is awesome. God is Awesome. But all religions that are not Catholicism suck. This word popped up in a lesson with the word Christianity - and it was a lesson how the the Spanish conquistadors killed thousand of native Americans in the 16th century all in the name of 'Catholicism.' They did it to save them from going to hell - they used guns to either kill them or enslave them. WWJD?

2. yard
This word has popped up a few times. In a city with 728 million people, there are not many yards. Just the concept of having some grass in front of a house baffles these young minds and as many pictures as I draw, the idea never gets across.

1. abortion
I don't feel like this word needs much explanation as to why it is uncomfortable to explain to kids that don't speak my language. But seriously, who includes this word in ESL books for 6th graders?

I leave in a few short weeks, so these words and concepts have become much funnier to me instead of frustating.

All I want to say, is that if that Catholic Puebloan has another motherfucking abortion in her front yard I'm going to throw her birth control in the Sea of Japan. It just makes sense. Pretty sure that if any of my students have access to this blog, their minds just exploded..

Much love from Seoul