Perspective From Max Beaumont - Footprints Teacher in Korea
Max wrote this in his blog after North Korea attacked a small island in north eastern South Korea:
Was South Korea shot at last night? I think I saw a Facebook status mentioning something about North Korean missiles or something. Not sure.
I walk into school this morning, and what's the first thing the teachers say to me? Hey Max! You look tired today. What'd you do last night? Well first off, thanks Mr. Ahn, you're looking pretty tired yourself if you don't mind me saying. Also, apparently your country was shot at last night. Should we talk about that?
People here, in South Korea, aren't really freaking out. The people I've associated with at least. Sure North Korea fired a bunch of missiles our way this morning. Sure Kim Jong Il is insane and completely irrational. Sure Korean girls are really hot. These are all facts. But aside from these glaring truths, the gangsters here in the South seem rather unfazed by the incident. Things seem normal. The main issues at school remain the same- students are still exclusively concerned and relentless about getting a good spot in the lunch line, because damn it, if all the good meat and stuff in the soup is taken before Jae Hyun's turn, shit is going down!
I asked a few students if they were scared. A boy in the 7th grade joked that tonight, he was going to kill Kim Jung Il. I laughed. His friends laughed. Then the boy pointed at my chest and told me I had a lot of hair on it. We all laughed. A couple girls said they were scared, but no one was planning on swimming to Japan or anything. No one was crying. No one even voluntarily expressed any concern to me. The teachers didn't really talk about the events either, to me at least. The teacher's I did talk to seemed really optimistic about everything. I guess they've technically been at war for like 6o years, so they're used to the turmoil. Honestly, everyone seemed cool today. It felt far from, as the CNN headline read, "North Korea is on the Brink of War". (which scared the shit out of me by the way). Honestly I was cool all day, until I read that. CNN's like that kid who always embellishes a story in order to look cool and make friends, but eventually we call bullshit. But like I said, it was a completely normal day. At the very least, it's keeping my mind at ease, and the calmness and overall optimism here in the South should restore some confidence in my friends and family back home.
Max Beaumont
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