Last August I went away from the East Coast of Korea and into the interior of the country to a medium sized town called Sang ju. The Koreans conduct what they call ?English Camps? that generally last a week at a time. I had an experience with one of the children that I found absolutely delightful. I?d like to share it with you and hope it can bring a smile to your face!

The kids here in Sang-ju are as eager to learn as mine in Bugu-ri...actually, they are even more of a pleasure to work with because being elementary school age; they're much less inhibited about speaking than my Middle School children.

This English Camp is well organized and the kids are already more fluent in English than the ones I?ve been used to working with. In order to identify themselves, the students as well as their Korean teachers have all chosen English names, which they make visible by hanging name tags around their necks on a long string that makes a necklace.

Being in Sang-ju once again made me recall, (as I?ve noticed from the beginning of my coming to South Korea), how much the American Indians bear a striking resemblance to their Asian ancestors, who crossed the Bering Strait from Mongolia to arrive in their new homeland, America. My initial impression was that the cadence of these unfamiliar voices made me feel like I had been thrown in the middle of an American Indian Pow-Wow! Their rapid-fire, staccato speech in combination with their very keen sense of humor (enables the Koreans to laugh at themselves) in a way that a Westerner, especially the French and more specifically the Parisians would never be caught dead doing!

To a Westerner, they came up with some shocking names for themselves at that Camp! In fact, they?re some that a French or American would be astonished to hear. For example, there's one girl that calls herself ?Wolf?, who is already somewhat unusual to a Westerner?s mentality, but it was mainly the boys with the really hilarious names! Let?s see, there?s the one that called himself "Big Head", another who went by ?White Pig?, and still another named ?Monkey?. And what is more, they have they all have an absolutely dead serious rationale for their names. ?Monkey? called himself such, as he explained to me because he likes monkeys. ?They are intelligent and fast and I would like to live in the jungle?, he explained to me. Then there came the mystery of ?Poppy?. He was the most adorable little boy with an unbelievable twinkle in his eyes, but I just couldn?t imagine why he was calling himself ?Poppy?. So finally I asked him why he'd given himself that name, to which he quickly replied, with the most genuine expression on his cute little face: "Because I like little poppies!? (It was only at that moment that I realized it was a mispronunciation of ?puppy?!!!).

In keeping with being the highly competitive society that the Koreans are, they had a speech contest the final day of camp in which they introduced themselves, and said what they want to be when they grow up. Poppy wants to be a singer...he says in his speech that he wants to be a singer because he loves music, and in particular he likes the old Beatles song, Let it Be because it makes him happy and he feels like singing when he hears it! He goes on to say that he would like for his friends to love that song as much as he does, and in closing he ?would like to sing a few lines from Let it Be"...then he sings the refrain..."When I find myself in times of trouble,, Mother Mary comfort me...singing words of wisdom, Let it be...Let it be, Let it be, Let it be, Let it, Singing words of wisdom...Let it be"! He would sing it perrrrfectly and it was just simply toooo precious to behold! It?s without a doubt that the Korean kids make all of this worth it for me!

Adventurous spirit at heart, Mitzi is oginally from the rock and roll music capital, Austin, Texas. She has pushed her way around the globe from an eleven year sejour in Paris to currently teaching in Asia. Although a hopeless Francophile, she can now be found in Saigon, where she is writing and teaching English. For her complete bio, click here.

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