While doing a long walk around Namsan, my buddy Jang Woong and I talked about-- among other things-- my annoyance with cell phones in class. As you might imagine, Jang Woong showed more sympathy to my students than I harbor, but in the spirit of compromise, he suggested that I try a clever approach to expressing my feelings on the matter instead of just being a hardass. How? By showing the students this video at the beginning of every term.
Is the guy in the video for real? If so, I can only assume he got in trouble. While I applaud his decisiveness and clarity-- not a word is spoken about the phone in question, yet the cell phone policy is expressed in no uncertain terms-- I do question his diplomacy. All the same, Jang Woong may have a point: just as the finger-slicing, cat-abusing Zen stories are narratives meant to save future students from experiencing such events, this video might serve as a cautionary statement about the immiscibility of cell phones and crazy teachers. At the very least it will reinforce the stereotype that Westerners are unstable fuckers.
Note: JW found this video here, on a Korean site. I was pretty sure it would be on YouTube, and voilà-- there it was.
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