The most exhausting thing about today
was spending 10 minutes explaining to my class of 4 middle-school children that it is totally fine to gay. They’ve been throwing it round as an insult more and more, there’s one kid who keeps trying to poke me in the dick with something, and when i they whisper in eachothers ears, i say something like “Stop kissing in class” and they all flip out. That much, i can work with most days, apart from today. When aforementioned dickpoker tried to get me in the nads with a pencil, i told him to stop, to which he rebuked “Ah, teacher, you gay.”
“So, what does it matter if anyone’s gay?”
“Ahhh! Teacher gay!”
“I’m not gay (a halflie i admit, but Korea is officially no-homo). I’m just saying, it’s fine to be gay.” By this point, the rest of the class is involved, all squabbling over eachother.
“Whaaaaaat?”
“Some of my best friends are gay”
“You know gay?!”
“Loads. Chances are, you’ll know one too.”
“Noooo, no gays! It’s dirty”
“Dirty how?”
“….Dirty.”
“Last week, you were all talking about your favourite assault rifles, brand name and model number. For projects, all you write about is people getting killed and blown up. You think war and death is fine, but being gay is dirty?”
“Yeah!”
“…Look, i don’t care if you’re gay. I don’t. It’s fine by me. Being gay is fine.”
“But teacherrrrrrr…”
“It’s fine. End of.”
These kids aren’t even out of bounds in Korea. Like i said, the country steadfastly denies any man-lust, but at the same time features such tight male friendships that mistaking them is easy. I see old men walking about arm in arm, guys rubbing eachothers backs or arms, bromance like you would not believe. But actual full blown gay? No dice. Boggles me still.
That kid continues to try and poke me in the dick anyway.
