TOP 5: The first of many

In my conversation class last week I explained Top 10s, 20s, 100s, etc. My example was off of a fellow Ex-pat's blog titled "The Top 21 things Koreans like." There were the obvious ones like kimchi, Korea, hearing foreigners say that they love Korea and then there were ones that made me laugh: old Friends episodes, Internet Explorer, Dokdo, fried chicken, German made cars, and canned music. Then of course there were the materialist things too: high heels, and skin-whitening cream. I wanted them to make their own top 10 favourite things about anything, but the class digressed into a very odd, and shocking, conversation about race, appearances and misnomers about black people.

So I figured I'd make up for the lack of top tens being made last week by pledging to do some Top 5s in the blog world.

Here are 5 words that have lost all meaning to me because I hear them to often.

5. EHHHHHH/ OI - After countless games of volleyball and the incessant cheering and hooting these EHHHs and OIs, I never want to hear them again. I doubt they had much meaning, if any, in the beginning anyways. 

4. Handsome - I could survive on compliments alone but when those compliments are also given to less-deserving faces (Rowan Atkinson) I've come to understand that Koreans believe for someone to be handsome they need to have a face with a nose two eyes and and a mouth that has minimal scarring.

3. Nice to meet you - Children who I have known the entire time I've been at this school still say this to me. They don't seem to understand its a one-time sentence. I wish I could spend a full day just teaching them other things to say such as "Good to see you." Who am I kidding though, this is something for their English Academies to fix.

2. Yes - I try to ask a lot of questions and typically that's the answer. Until my co-teachers realize what I've asked them and they go the round about way of taking back their yes.  

1. Fine - This is the by far the most vacant and common reply to the question "How are you?" It's the definition of an automated response even for the students who can't read they all know how to say I'm fine. I hate it, hate it, HATE IT.