Odd Duck

I am not a racist person.  If you think that by being a wee bit politically incorrect (which I will be in the following post) is a be-all end-all that you can judge a person's character by, please stop reading this post now.

So, no, this post is not about people eating dog.  Although, as a follow-up to that, my lovely Japanese assistant did ask me if it is true that Chinese people eat fetuses.  How sick is that?  I promptly told her that what other's do is none of our business and that maybe fetuses taste good.  Who is she to judge?

Ew. Totally kidding.  I used it as a teaching moment to discuss how groups of people who have disagreements sometimes say things about each other that are meant o make the other group look bad or are meant to be hurtful.

This story is about French-Canadians.  Well, not all Frenchies, but specifically one odd duck.

I have met many wonderful French-Canadians in my life.  However, a large number of these individuals were the type of person one could describe as slightly strange, although not to the point where they cannot function in polite society.

Back to my story of today...

I am great friends with the amazing teachers who sponsored me on my practicum.  I worked my buns off for them--well, not literally since I gained 20 pounds in the 5 months--and they reciprocated my hard work by essentially employing me as their substitute for a year.

At the end of the year that I was a sub, there was a teacher barbeque that I attended with all the teachers from the school.  We were all sitting around, enjoying some finely crafted beef dips out of paper plates and bowls.  I was seated beside my former sponsor teacher whom I will refer to as Mama.  She was seated beside a teacher from the French immersion program, Odd Duck.

Mama: Um, that was very nice food.


Odd Duck: Oui, that was delicious.


Mama: Let's clear some room for dessert.  Can I put my bowl in your bowl?


Clearly, everyone else around understands that she is trying to clear the garbage from the table by stacking the paper bowls.

Odd Duck: I do not understand.  Bowl in my bowl?


Mama: You know. Like ***puts her hands one on top of the other**** bowl smoochie.


Odd Duck: (in a huff) Uhg, I am a happily married man.


With that, Odd Duck got up, stormed off, and left Mama with her jaw hanging open.  She turned to me, speechless.   Please keep in mind, this is after the teacher had worked with Mama for a year.

How weird is that?  I say, the Odd Duck is swimming in his own pond.

Cultural Stereotypes

Setting: A couple weeks ago, ESL class

Context: As an ESL teacher, I get special leveled ESL materials. One of these is a magazine/newspaper written for adults but at a low level. I like to let my kids spend some time reading the articles that interest them like you and I would with an average newspaper.  However, I also make them choose one article that they would like to read to the class and discuss.  This generally goes off without a hitch: practice reading and decoding, work on pronunciation, and engage with a multi-cultural class in discussion where everyone is expected to form opinions.

Cast: This class is very small.  I have an assistant who is a spectacular grade 12 girl from Japan.  There is a boy and a girl from Mexico, a boy from Thailand, three boys from China, and two boys from Korea.  One of these Korean boys is new to Canada but adjusting rapidly as he adopts a pithy attitude and a rebellious streak.  I'll call him Korean Jim.  His name isn't Jim, but the name he selected is equally as staunch.

Ms. B: So, let's look at one final article. My favourite article was this one on page three that discusses the documentary The Cove.  *insert discussion on the article, what this movie is about etc* Did anyone see this movie?

The class begins to discuss practices of their cultures that are not common world-wide.  We decide we should watch this film, as long as our TA is okay with it, which she is.  We discuss Canadian practices that are frowned upon and/or debated.  We talk about seal hunting and whaling.  As we put away our newspaper, Korean Jim pipes up.

Korean Jim: Mrs. B? In Korea, we eat dog.

Now, because of his thick accent, it sounded more like this: Een KOR-E-A, we. eat. DAWG.

Ms. B, naturally curious, having heard this but never having been to Korean, asks: What kind of dog?

Now, I too am a dog lover.  Many of you after my own heart may wonder how I could bring myself to talk about this.  I would never engage in eating a dog, but my mind is open enough to understand and respect cultural differences.  I know that few animals are as loyal, loving, and wonderful as a dog, but I have seen people with pet pigs who are just as spectacular.  It is a cultural practice to keep animals as pets, just like it is to eat them. Who are we to judge? 

The Dutch eat horses; Canadians eat narwhal; Koreans eat dogs. 

I am not one to judge the practices, especially culinarily, of other groups of people.  I think I am just as unlikely to ever eat tripe or cockroaches as I am dog.  However, despite not doing it myself, I am still curious.  If you told me you ate a cockroach, my first question would be, "What did it taste like?" Even if you told me it tasted like sunshine and rainbows, I STILL wouldn't try it BUT I would then be able to tell people that cockroaches taste like sunshine and rainbows if it ever came up in conversation.

So, naturally, I wanted to learn more from Korean Jim. He is in Canada learning about our culture (even if all he is adopting is a piss-poor attitude), an I can also engage in this cultural exchange.

Ms B.: What kind of dog?

The answer I am looking for is like pug (please no!), retriever, etc.  I would settle for big, small, old, anything that hints at what type of dog is eaten.

Korean Jim: Male dog. Female dog.

He narrowed it down to all dogs.  Not very helpful.  I decided to move on and never bring pug Norm to visit me.   

Things Out of Context

Again, I am way to tired to write anything comprehension AND comprehensible.  So, again, as more of a musing than a blog, I thought I should I would share a couple of statement that I made.  These were both heard by other teachers.  Of course, the entire conversation wasn't heard, just the one line that, taken out of context could get me in a lot of trouble.

#1: "Good work, but there was a little too much nipple for me."

#2: "Does this mean I get to beat you now?"

I don't think I will elaborate. It is much more interesting to keep you guessing as to how these statement were completely appropriate in everyday teacher-student talk, but trust, both were :)