I was trying to explain the word “cherish” to a class. One student, Jinu, stood up from his seat and began a bizarre mime, swinging one arm in and out and swaying his hips strangely.
“What are you doing?” I asked, although such outbursts of randomness were common from Jinu, who is entering the 5th grade next month.
“I am a drunk cellist,” he explained. I realized he’d misunderstood “cherish” as “cellist.” Still, I’m not sure that explains the need to be a drunk one, though there was a running joke in the class a while back that his handwriting resembled that of a drunk octopus.
The same Jinu has some unusual talents. He writes very convincing Korean in Roman characters – he’s better at ad-hoc romanization than many adult Koreans I’ve met. Here are two samples from a recent quiz.
The first, “mor~ra yo!” is 몰라요 [mol-la-yo = I don’t know]. The second, “bbang Jum ee ye yo” is 빵점이에요 [ppang-jeom-i-e-yo = that’s zero points].
Needless to say, despite his romanization talents, it was, indeed, zero points.
