Sign Language

I've figured out why the video store in my little neighbourhood is so CRAP! It's because the owner (and surely orderer of videos and DVD's) is an action-movie/horror-flick kind of guy. The shelves are stocked with absolute shit movies. I've mentioned this before. There are 5 copies of "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," and one copy of the multi-Academy-Award winning "Million Dollar Baby." There are 3 copies of a surely straight-to-video movie called "Down" here, but called something else in other markets (I can't figure it out, and I've googled a bunch of words) but yet still no "Finding Neverland" or (insert good movie title here.)

The owner, when he greets me, either reaches his arms out and pulls me into a hug, (which is highly odd behaviour in South Korea) or he offers his hand for a handshake. But it's not your ordinary handshake. He uses one of his fingers to scratch the palm of my hand while he shakes it. Know what I mean? (nudge nudge wink wink!) I truly thought that was a North American thing. Now I'm wondering if it's a secret worldwide code of "let's get it on?"

And speaking of signs, I led my class of little 8 year olds in a song the other day. The Korean teacher has been working on it, so they were familiar with the easy words and melody. I incorporated hand gestures. Here, each of the fingers are assumed a family rank! (We have thumb, pointer, middle, ring and baby.) In Korea, it's daddy, mommy, sister, brother, baby, respectively. The song goes:

"Father finger, father finger, where are you?
Here I am, here I am, how do you do?"

I hid my fingers during the "where are you" part, and then revealed them during the "here I am" part.

Once we got to the "sister (middle) finger" part, my smart little student Emily tugged on my sleeve, stuck her "sister" finger up in my face and proudly proclaimed,
"Teacha! Fuck You!" (She even did it with a clear "F" sound, that we've been working on - most Koreans use a "P" sound.) Emily demonstrated very bad manners, but excellent pronunciation and comprehension.

Signs, signs, everywhere are signs!