An Angry Man in the Land of the Morning Calm

Most of you reading this know me.  I like to keep my hair in a state of general disarray, so it tends to draw attention, especially here in Korea.  Students have likened my appearance to Beethoven, Ben Franklin (they know more about American history than any American student does, sadly), and the one that really sticks, Hagrid, from Harry Potter.

In fact, it stuck at my school, and it caught on and stuck at the english camp.  Not many of my students call me Hunter at all, anymore.  At first, they all just called me Sangsamnim, which is just teacher, but I really don’t like formal titles or names.  Mr. Herr wasn’t going to fly either, especially because their “r’s” tend to come out as “l’s”.  Then they started calling me Hagrid, which most of my co-teachers fought against at first, feeling it was disrespectful, but now just let it slide.

I told the students if they were disrespecting me with it, there isn’t much I can do to stop them, but that I’d be pretty disappointed with Korean youth if that were the case (appeal to their nationalism, it really really works here in lieu of real discipline), and many of them took great pains to explain to me, in English no less, that they didn’t mean any disrespect, and would stop if I still wanted them to.  I kinda like it as a nickname, and since they are doing it in good spirits, I don’t mind at all, and now I’m Hagrid.