Korea is definitely not America.

This week I was teaching my students about some idioms that we use in English.  The specific lesson that I did focused on idioms that refer to colors.  As a class activity, they had to create a dialogue using an assigned place, situation, and two idioms.  Here is what I got from two of my male students:

A:  I think think we need to break up.
B: What? Why?
A: I'm gay.
B: What?  That is out of the blue.
A:  Really, I am gay. This is my new boyfriend (as he points to another student)
B:  Well now you have shown your true colors.


Many of the dialogues were hilarious, but this one easily takes the cake.  There are many things that happen in my classes in Korea that would NEVER happen in America.  For example, this dialogue happened in a class of all boys. I can't imagine any of my students back home ever volunteering to even pretend to be gay for even two seconds.  Don't get me wrong, I think being gay in America is WAY more acceptable than it is in Korea, but the dynamics between the students are different.

It's not uncommon to see members of the same sex holding hands as they walk down the street in Korea.  In fact, in Korea, this is a symbol of friendship, not one's sexual orientation, and I often see it between my students.  During class I'll often see my male students rub each other's shoulders, especially when one of their classmates has fallen asleep and they need to wake them up.  It's always interesting to see, and has made me realize that America is really a "hands-off" culture.

Korea has its own gender roles and social norms, and some align with those in the US, but some are strikingly different.  For example, when I was on my class field trip Everland a while ago, as we were standing in line, the woman in front of us took out her compact powder and started applying make-up to her boyfriend.  And while it surprised me at first, as I thought about it, I realized that many of the Korean heart throbs are not macho, tough looking guys, but they are actually feminine looking.  I've noticed that Korea seems to have the same standard of beauty for both men and women.  It's really interesting that in America women fantasize about men with muscles and ripped abs, but I haven't seen any of that marketed in Korea.

Also, on a somewhat different note, on Friday I put on a Taylor Swift song for my all-male class while they were completing an assignment. And they loved it.  And they sang along.  I couldn't help but laugh to myself as I tried to imagine what would happen if I ever put on a Taylor Swift song on for a classroom full of American boys.  HA!