I have two "co-teachers" that are also English teachers. One of these teachers I team-teach with twice a week. The other I ask a billion questions of. I can't say enough good things about them. They have been lifesavers. The rest of the week I teach on my own, but because Korean law states a Korean teacher must be present, the class' homeroom teachers are in the room with me. And most of them are absolutely wonderful. They help behavior manage and keep the kids on task. Some of them are even able to translate directions for me. I am so grateful and feel so lucky. So I thought a nice gesture would be to actually learn their Korean names. It was obvious no one really expected me to, but I thought it was simply because, well, I'm a foreigner who doesn't speak Korean and Korean names are fricking challenging.
I was very wrong.
I made this discovery two days ago. My co teachers and I were hanging out in our office drinking tea and coffee and chatting. (Yes, we work very hard.) The PE teacher came in and gave me a beautiful book on tourist activities and sights in Sangju. "Ha!" I thought. Perfect opportunity. "Kate, what is his name?" I asked after he left, pen in hand, prepared to write it out phonetically. After she said it very slowly several times, I got it.
Choe Sung Guk
Okay. Now that I have the name, which part do I actually use? What is his first name?
When giving their name, Korean's give their surname first. I found this out when having my students make name tags on day one of school. So here, I would call him Sung Guk.
Except that I wouldn't. When they got the drift that I was planning on actually using his name, they said, "Oh no but you can just call him PE Teacher." "No!" I said. "I don't mind using their actual names! I want to! Isn't that more polite?" At this point I'm still thinking they're trying to save me the trouble, getting me out of memorizing a dozen different Korean names that to me just sound like random syllables put together. And syllables I can't even pronounce at that.
"No no no," they said. "It is better for you to call him Teacher. It is more polite that way. If you want to say in Korean call him Son Sang Nim."
HUH?
In Korea, it isn't polite to call people by name, especially if they are older than you. You can call your friends by name, but here "friends" is code for "people the same age as you." So it is more polite for me to call out "Teacher!" from across the room than it is for me to use their name. To call a much older person by name is a huge faux pas. Everyone would would stop and stare like I'd just dropped an F-bomb in front of a nun. If they are noticeably younger than you, such as my students, then its okay.
Such a huge cultural difference. Can you imagine if I walked around an elementary school in The States calling my co-workers "Teacher" ?? "Hey Teacher how was your weekend?" Can't you just see the looks I would get? This cultural rule also results in students calling me "Teacher." They did it in Thailand as well, and it drove me up the wall. I've acclimated to it a little more at this point, but it's still odd. It just sounds so rude, calling someone by their occupation rather than their personal name. Yet here its the exact opposite.
My co teachers actual doubled over with fits of giggles imagining me calling my principal or vice principal by name. Even Mr. _______ is a no.
Quite glad I found this out before I spent time memorizing everyone's name or created an uncomfortable and awkward "Do we tell the foreigner she's being incredibly impolite?" moment by using them! (Because we all know the first time I would have used someone's name it would have been to the oldest teacher in front of a whole lot of people.)
I should probably pass this new info along to Jesse, since he was just the other day proudly telling me how he had memorized a couple of the teachers' names...
