Megalomaniacal, Fanatically Religious Nutcase

When you post an add offering ENGLISH TUTOR in huge bold letters, you would expect to get emails about being an English tutor, but it's not entirely so. A caveat to those intending to advertise in Korea: you're going to run in to some nut jobs.

When I wrote my tutor add, I found it relevant to post that I had experience with the Latin language which has served to bolster my own linguistic understanding and productive vocabulary. I also mentioned that I come from a mother who teaches language, indicating that I have had some contact with the pedagogy of language instruction. Amazing how things can become so misconstrued...

About a month prior to Easter I was contacted by someone claiming to be translating the Bible from English to French. Though their reason for doing so is not clear (since many Bibles exist in both English and French, not to mention this person's first language was clearly not either of those languages), this anonymous emailer requested my help translating. When I told them that I do not speak French, they became very shocked and told me "You speak Latin, right?"
1) I took that language 3 yrs ago
2) nobody speaks Latin
3) add said ENGLISH TUTOR
4) FRENCH IS NOT LATIN!!!!
After putting this seriously misinformed person in contact with a French speaker I knew, I washed my hands of the scenario and moved on.

Recently, I received this email (all emails are copied word for word, no editing). Bear in mind that this was completely without precedent or explanation:

bUT IT MIGHT BE CHANGED ANYWAY i CAME BACK FROM JAPAN
DO YOU EVER VISIT THERE?
i HAVE A FRIEND WHO WORK THERE AS AN ENGLISH TEACHER.
aND i WILL VISIT JAPANESE SCHOOL.
CAN YOU TEACH LATIN THERE?
wE HAD JAPANESE STUDENT ABROAD FESTIVAL ONCE A YEAR THIS YEAR i WAS A STAFF.
SO I HAVE PLAN TO VISIT THE JAPANESE SCHOOL AND WANT TO TALK TO USE THEIR PLACE
FOR A NEXT FESTIVAL.
AND THANK YOU AND BYE
I WANT TO STUDY LATIN AND MY BROTHER IS LOOKING FOR A SCHOOL IN NEWYORK.
i HAVE YOUR 5 MAIL AND i WONDER WHICH SCHOOL YOU R GRADUATED.
HE PREPARE TO GO TO THE HARVARD.

I replied slightly confused but assuming that this person had seen my ad and was interested in Latin lessons? What would you assume? Anyway, while I am no longer familiar with the language, it's still fresh enough that I could teach an absolute beginner if I had a book. I proceeded to tell this new person (let's call her Rosalina) that I was available on Thursday and Friday mornings but that the rest of my schedule was very busy. If she could find a book I could teach her Latin.

Reply:
hi I enterd graduate school in yonsei education department.
But some reason I became to delay my graduate.
I do not have latinbook where can I find it.
But I have a french book also.
what about saturday?
I like satuday afternoon what about you?

Again with the French??? What are the schools here telling these kids?? And I had explicitly said only Thursday and Friday morning. Additionally, this is Rosalina's country, not mine. Shouldn't she know where to buy books? I mildly informed her of all these facts. This was a Thursday. She sent me this on Friday.

Reply:
do you have time tomorrow?
Because I go to school tomorrow
I go there rom 9 to 2 and then I will meet a friend who take a GsIS.
Are you gsis student?
Can we have meeting tomorrwo?
I really want to study latin but I do nto knwo where I can fidn a book .
Where can I find it...??
After we meet we can decide exchange korean and latin is this sounds good?
my friend name is esther

Alright. Again, suggests Saturday. Again, asks where she can buy a book. What is wrong with this person??? Before I have a chance to reply I get this in my inbox:

what do you do on saturday?
i will try to find a book but if you are fine call me tomorrow
IF you are find can I call tomorrow?
Because I will see mt friend tomorrow.
Let me know your number.

ARGH!!!! I sent her a response reiterating my initial email more clearly and tersely than before. Just when I was ready to give up on this chick she levels out. She says she's bought the book and asks me when and where I can meet Thursday morning. After we arrange everything, she sends an awkward number of emails just asking inane questions. It's the kind of questions that should be saved for when you first meet someone, but I just chalk it up to her being overly excited about lessons.

Thursday morning, we meet. I can tell immediately that she is not a typical Korean. Her style is something in between a carpet bagger and a grandmother, but its not dirty or anything. It's the kind of style that could be classified as either really original or really oblivious. We sit down at a table and she shows me the book. We don't talk about it though. Her first question is "Are you Catholic? Protestant? What about before? Are your parents Catholic? Protestant? Methodist?" Woah woah woah. There are different conceptions of what qualifies as personal information here, but that's over the line even for Korea. Then she proceeds to ask me about Latin. Is it the same as Hebrew? No, not really at all. Is it the same as Aram? I'm afraid I'm not quite familiar with Aram...

When this girl speaks, imagine that she's really out of breath, stuttery, and inarticulate, and imagine that she says everything as though she were delivering some life or death message.

"Jesus spoke Aram and and and there were people in the Bible who spoke it and today there are small groups of of of peoples who are living in in Iran and they speak Aram and those Aram people have many hardships and I want to to help them with their their hardships and when Cain killed Abel the Aram people decided to leave and that's where they they they are but when Cain killed Abel God let Cain go back to to Eden and I don't understand because I was thought that Eden closed and and how can you go back if God closed it? I think the Eden still exists and if it exists we can find it because God said so and there is the Tree of Life that God had had an angel with a fire sword guard and and and I want to find the Tree of Life so that we can have a closer experience with with God. Where do you think Eden is?"

...
ok
where to begin...
"Well, I think a lot of things in the Bible are symbolism."

"No, no no because I told people that it's real so I can find it."

At this point I decided to inform her that scientists who are also Christians largely believe that the most likely place that Eden did exist was between the Tigris and Euphrates river, smack in the middle of Iraq. Good luck. I tried to steer the conversation to Latin classes, but I was becoming increasingly aware that nothing good would come of this person. She then took the conversation in another wild direction:
-can't you speak French?
-NO! What is it with you people!
- Well, can you read French?
-No. I can recognize the words that are close to Latin or English words, but that's about it.
At this point in the conversation, she pulls out a notebook of all her translated Bible passages that she had written in French. She flipped from page to page asking me to read paragraphs. Being as she had written them herself it was not for her understanding. It was simply to test my comprehension of the French language which I repeatedly claimed to have no knowledge of.
-What about this one?
-Well, that word is monster and that word is ocean and that says they lived, but I really can't speak French at all you know.
-What about this one?

I began to recognize that I could not possibly tutor this person. I began trying to wiggle my way out of ever seeing her again, but she was not one to be easily dissuaded. I tried the "leaving the country soon" excuse, but it turns out she's leaving end of May to go to Berkeley (who let her in???). I tried telling her that she could probably learn Latin on her own since it was a relatively basic language and completely unspoken in it's original form. After all, Korea's biggest English problem is that they only learn vocab and how to read but none of them can speak or listen worth a damn. All she would have to do is what all Koreans do: memorize! But she wanted a teacher. *sigh*

It was beginning to look like I had no feasible excuse, when it dawned on me; Crazy people never have money!
-My fee is 30 dollars an hour.
-oh...oh...is that what you charge for English?
-Yes, and since I can get an English student easily it's not worth it to me to teach for any less.
-I see...how about language exchange??
[a note to the reader: language exchange is the concept that a student will learn your language (most often English) in exchange for their teaching you Korean instead of actually paying. It never is 50/50 balanced though. In fact most often it is the Korean slang for "free engrish resson."]
-Nope, not interested.
Here Rosalina spent a considerable amount of time trying to convince me that I needed Korean lessons, asking me why I took Korean in the first place if I don't want her to help me perfect myself, and generally aggravating me. Needless to say I had found my out and I knew it. I was holding onto this life preserver like Alec Baldwin clings to that one dusty Oscar nomination.

Eventually, she gave up trying to convince me, but that didn't keep her from espousing more crazy babble. Most notably:
-Well, since you're a a a major in the journalism then you should think about North Korea because I want to work with North Korea with the Denmark's embassy because because they have one in North Korea and Denmark has good embassies and social um um uh things and there are the biggest problem in Korea is that they kill Christians.
-Ummmm...are you sure that's there biggest problem? I don't think that even happens. And isn't Kim JongIl himself a Christian?
-No no no he is not and I know economics but but this is their biggest problem.
-What about human rights? For...everybody? Isn't what hurts everybody more important to that country than supposed religious persecution?
-Well, the Christians that are died are lost their human rights and and and they do have to work for for North Korea to dig the holes in the mountains where the Kim JongIl makes his nuclear weapons and I want to go there and help them with their their [search through electronic dictionary] their devastation. If you want to then I work with Denmark and Belgium and maybe you can help me bebebecause I don't have very much helpers right now and you could talk to the embassies for me and it might be good to you to write some things about it for America?

There has to be some way to end this torture, right? It has been an hour by this point, and as I look at my watch hands coming to rest on exactly eleven, I realize the one tool I haven't utilized yet: the all powerful 약속 (appointment/promise). Since the keeping of one's appointments and promises is so valued in this culture, throwing this word out means immediate freedom from whatever you are currently doing. How could I not have thought of this sooner?? So I dropped the bomb and scampered quickly away as she shouted after me something about Belgian embassy and think about it.

I had assumed that her cheap self would have taken this advantage as well in order to escape the awkwardness of not having money, but not so. The same day I receive this email:
so
how do yoy do?
do you think we can study latin again?
so for one I will teach you chinese if you need.
So, another offer to do "language exchange" in a language she's probably worse at than English. Then sent later the same day still:
and I write genisis in english.
If you like write it in korea you can find a bible in the chaple main hall.
because they have their own bible.
Or I can take one for you.
I wrote it till 4 so next time I will write 5.
So we can share more than language And I will take map for the genesis because I have.
So you see that this person is completely insane, and with those types of people sometimes the best end to things is more blunt that you would like...
"look, rosalina

I'm not interested in Chinese, Christianity, or anything you have to offer. I think it would be better if we don't meet each other any more. for that matter, I think we shouldn't contact each other period."

The end? Still no. This was the last email I sent her, since the interaction was only encouraging her and was my mistake from the very beginning, but she keeps on sending:
well.
what matter ?where is eden ?

and then:
anyway..
If you want to find a gold I have to give.
www.cyworld.com/jesu
But if you are interested in north korea I can help.
Because I work with them.

Of course, there was nothing at that link...*cookoo*
and then:
some work there.
It might be interesting to write or show their move.
spies.
yonsei is interesting place.


I have never met any one crazier in this country or any other, but the whole episode has been so comical that it was totally worth it. That was the last correspondence I received from her, but I don't presume it's over. I remain hopeful that I will get more psychopathic hilarity in the near future. Don't combine this account with the shootings in Virginia and construe that all Koreans are off their rockers: most people here are very very normal. So normal that it's like cloning was never banned by the scientific community...

봄이 왔다!

Midterm season is the best here. It would never fly in the States, but all classes are cancelled during midterm week and every teacher cancelled the classes the week before the midterms so that everyone could study. It's like an extra spring break, except with tests.

The weather has gotten warmer and the landscape is gorgeous. Cherry blossoms everywhere. For one week there were whitish pink flowers on trees that you didn't even know were cherry trees, and this week it's even better. It's like something out of an anime music video; there is a constant soft snowfall of cherry blossom petals all day every day. Not too mention the flowering azalea and forsythia and some other tree with big white blossoms. It's so nice to be out of the drear and the rain and the cold. I'll post pictures as soon as I figure out how to get them off my camera and onto one of these school computers (computer is broken -- camera needs a program to upload pictures -- school computers don't allow program downloading)

Other than that, it's just been a lot of school and tutoring. I took several extra jobs to put me back in the black after the two weeks of Japan/Korea tutoring as well as to help afford a new computer. I sort of feel like I'm missing opportunity here, but then again I'm back-paying for opportunity that I've already grasped so I can't really complain.

Plus, in the middle of an epic grapple with the bureaucracy of the home university. More stress than I want to even think about.