How Teaching in South Korea Gave me a Thicker Skin

Casually insulting teachers seems to be a fun pastime for the children at my school.

Daily, at least one child rubs my belly and says the words:

“Teacher, baby?!”

I try to smile and reply that no, I’m not pregnant. They look at my belly and wholeheartedly disagree with me. How can I not be pregnant if I don’t have a flat stomach? It makes no sense to them. But those are the little ones. I’ll let them off. It’s less cute when a 13-year-old kid pokes you in the belly and says one word: “Fat.” Cheers for that.

Another child asks me, “Teacher, why are your legs so big?” I said that I’m an adult, and adults have bigger and different bodies than children. He looked concerned for a minute before shaking his head and saying, “No, that’s not it.”

I wish I could say it’s just the kids, but it’s not. My boss saw me one day in a pair of fitted trousers instead of the usual skirts and dresses I usually wore and exclaimed,

“Woah! I didn’t know your butt was that big! Why is it so big? Is it natural, or do you do squats?”

Surprised, I stammered, “Erm…kind of both.”

“Wow. Can you show me how to do a squat?”

And before I know it, I’m doing squats in the hallway with the headteacher. (I want to point out that I am not even overweight. God help if I was, I can’t even imagine how much less amusing this would be. I am a UK size 10, US size 6.)

I have a small birthmark next to my right eye. I have never been more aware of its existence than I was in Korea. The kids pointed it out ALL.THE.TIME. They ask what it is, I explain. After a few seconds of consideration:

“Oh, why no laser?”

I’m a bit stumped by this. Erm…I don’t know why no laser. I’ve never even thought of lasering off my birthmark. In Korea, it’s the norm to have any imperfection like that lasered off.

My Irish friend, who is covered in freckles and jokes that she has more freckles than regular skin, is continuously asked why she doesn’t have them lasered off.

“What?! Laser off my entire face and body? Erm…no.”

Again, not just the kids, one day, my co-teacher sheepishly asked if she could touch it. I found this funny, so I said yes. She stroked the birthmark and shuddered.

“Ooooo, it feels weird! Why no laser?”

It’s strange that if people said half these things to me back home, I’d be very insulted, but for some reason here, it doesn’t feel like it comes from a bad place. It comes from a place of curiosity and honesty.

I’m not going to get laser removal, but I’m still going to leave with my skin changed. It’s going to be much thicker.

This story was originally published on Medium

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Georgina Nelson. Traveller. Writer. Photographer. Yoga teacher.

Sh*t Happens — because the things that go wrong make the funniest stories.