I was on my way to a wifi enabled cafe in Seoul today, I'm still plugging away on that secondary source on Locke's theory of will, when something very amusing happened.
I will start by way of background. Some of my Korean readers will know that gaining English proficiency is very important in Korea. Sometimes to a state of inflated ridiculousness. In some sense this is very important because I communicate in English with Ahreum. Luckily she never got caught up in some of the more extreme efforts some Koreans make to learn English.
Anyway. I was getting out of the subway station, and this lady was handing out some professional looking information packets, complete with attached pen. Normally such people don't hand me anything because I'm clearly not Korean. But this time I could tell the situation was different. She gave me the packet without hesitation.
I said thank you in Korean, and began to walk away. Intrigued, I began to leaf through the pages in Hangul. Then something jumped out at me. This was an advertisement for speaKing, a Toefil preparation company (the Toefil is a standardized test Universities use to make sure non-native English speakers are up to University work). I don't think I need to explain the irony in this situation. (Though I do wonder how well I would do?)
I went back and returned the literature to her, saying, "I think you had better give this to someone else." I smiled, "Thank you," this time in English.
I walked off with a great big grin on my face.
Once more into the breach,
Ben
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