Gord: Good morning!
Class: Good morning!
Gord: How are you?
Class: Fine, thank you, and you?
Gord: I’m good. It’s a nice day!
One Student: Yes, it is! It’s a warm!
Gord: Yes, it’s warm. Hey, everybody! Look out the window.
Class: (looking out the window)
Gord: Do you know what those flowers are called?
Another Student: The butt flower? Heh heh.
Class: (laughs)
Gord: (gesturing at his butt) The butt flower? No, no. It’s called a cherry flower.
Class (scatteredly): Cher-ry flower.
Gord: Those flowers are beautiful, aren’t they?
Majority of the Class: Yes!
One Student: No! It’s ugly.
Gord: What? Ugly? The opposite of beautiful?
One Student: Ugly, yes!
Gord: (Offering student his glasses.)
Class: (laughs)
Gord: Why do you think it’s ugly?
One Student: It’s Japanese. So it’s ugly!
Gord: (involuntary shocked look)
Class: (laughs)
Gord: But… the flower itself. It’s ugly?
One Student: Yes. I hate. It’s ugly.
Class: (Laughs)
Gord: Okay, then… uh… Well, let’s talk about the test next week!
Class: (groans)
I hardly see the point in commenting on ithere or in classbut the scene was both very surprising to mefor a momentand then, immediately after, completely unsurprising. To the student’s credit, it’s probably difficult to say something like, “I find the cherry tree a bittersweet reminder of the legacy of Japan’s occupation of Korea,” but then again, I suspect he would not have said “ugly” if he was thinking something as nuanced as that. I would imagine he’d use a word like “sad” or “unhappy” or “poor”.
The cherry blossom is called the “Beot Ggot”, so the “Butt Flower” is just a half-translation of the Korean name of the flower into English.
So just wondering, but what’re your thoughts on the election of Pope Wingnut I?
Ah, they all look the same to me, those people.
(Popes, I mean.)
This one looks like the Emperor from Star Wars. About as enlightened, it seems, too.