I can’t forget the funny Korean professor, Mr.Han whom I met in America. He came to America with his family as a visiting scholar when I was in the States.
His way of talking was funny and most of all, his hair didn’t seem to look right at all. My friend said to me, “Look, weird, isn’t it? His hair color is too black” “yeah,right, his hair is very still, never blows by wind, do you think it is a wig?” then we laughed each other and said at the same time, “Who cares!”
One day, I saw him playing tennis with his friend. His face was covered with sweat, but his sticky looking hair never moved one strand of hair.
“Hi, Mr.Han!” I bowed to him, he was waving at me. I asked, “How is your English class going?” I was told he and his wife were taking an ESL course. He said, “Good, good thanks to you” “???” He had a habit of adding “Thanks to you” to any sentence in any situation.
Around the end of fall, we all had barbecue picnic at a park and I met him there. “How do you like your ESL class?” I asked. He said, “Not anymore! I quit the class!” “How come?” He explained to me:
— Our ESL teacher asked us to team up and practice English free talking about color that we learned at the beginning of the class.
My partner was from China and I started the first question, “What color are your pants?” Once she heard it, she was angry with me, I didn’t know what I did wrong. Sooner or later, I overheard the Chinese woman misunderstood my English. She thought I said, “What color is your panty? —-
I had to bite my lip not to laugh. He continued,
— Even though I felt frustrated at that time, I was going to keep learning there until another incident happened.
On Halloween Day, I met my ESL teacher in the hallway at school, Ms.Anna wearing a witch costume and carrying a long broom and pumpkin. I just said, “Good morning, Ms.Anna, you are very beautiful!” then she totally looked annoyed and said to me, “You are not supposed to say that to me!”
I really don’t know what kind of mistake I made! Then I began to cool down my desire of learning English there. So I quit it. —
I felt sorry for him. I guessed the teacher must have had preconception about him. Maybe she heard about the panty color scandal from her Chinese student?
I met him when I went back to Korea at a party again. He told all of us this with a loud voice.
– In fact, I am wearing a wig. Before going to America, I bought this one at a store in my city. While I was staying in America for a year, it really felt uncomfortable. It didn’t seem to fit at all.
Once I came back to Korea, I took this to the store where I bought it.
I complained about this and the owner checked it carefully and said to me, “Oh, professor Han, you have been wearing this backwards, for god sake!”
Just saw your blog. I love it.
I’m not really sure. But he was pretty much a true hippy. Save the planet type of guy.
maybe eating tuna makes you cool, all the stundents liked him
funny,
I have experice to have a can of sardines for lunch at a park in Paris like a homeless to save money. Since I paid $20 for a sandwich and a bottle of water, I decided to eat very simple lunch there. : )
Mr.Han’s whole family are funny.
I will write about them next time.
Did anybody ask your chemistry teacher why he kept eating tuna for lunch?
Haha he sounds goofy.
Usually the goofy teachers are the best ones.
I remember my highschool chemistry teacher only ate tuna for lunch everyday…sigh… what a cool teacher.