It was my second "lazy Korean Friday"*, when I met this outstanding person. She opened the door at the school just right before I reached a handle from outside. Average height with dark short hair and friendly smile. She was our teacher for that day's lesson.
As professional habit, automatically, my brain started to study everything, every small detail and feature of her manners, appearance, style of speech. As a teacher myself and minoring in psychology I could tell that she spent pretty long time in Ukraine and, maybe, in the Soviet Union, because by the way she talked I could say that some words were in use here around 20-30 years ago and it could be caught only at Soviet time system of education.
...She was explaining Korean grammar rules and new vocabulary to us and she was always referring to Koreans as "they" and to Ukrainians as "we" and identifying herself with "us"(Ukrainians), which I found interesting, because it's rare to see a person who obviously identify herself with another culture rather than her own. So, by that time, I was already so curious about her personal background that I did commitment to myself: "I'll ask her after the lesson".
And what did she tell us was one of the most interesting stories I've ever heard from foreigners here in Ukraine...
As professional habit, automatically, my brain started to study everything, every small detail and feature of her manners, appearance, style of speech. As a teacher myself and minoring in psychology I could tell that she spent pretty long time in Ukraine and, maybe, in the Soviet Union, because by the way she talked I could say that some words were in use here around 20-30 years ago and it could be caught only at Soviet time system of education.
...She was explaining Korean grammar rules and new vocabulary to us and she was always referring to Koreans as "they" and to Ukrainians as "we" and identifying herself with "us"(Ukrainians), which I found interesting, because it's rare to see a person who obviously identify herself with another culture rather than her own. So, by that time, I was already so curious about her personal background that I did commitment to myself: "I'll ask her after the lesson".
And what did she tell us was one of the most interesting stories I've ever heard from foreigners here in Ukraine...
