Hanaking for the japanese.
Bulgem for koreans.
Literally means "Fire Friday".
I will never forget how happy my students' face were whenever I said those phrases.
T.G.I.F. as we, ESL Teachers, say to our students or even to each other every Friday. However, some crazy party goers change TGIF to D.B.I.F. which stands for Drink Beer, It's Friday.
I personally love Fridays because Mondays to Thursdays are quite exhausting. In our school before, Mondays to Thursdays were my busy days because I needed to teach from 8am to 5pm. If I had special classes, it would take me until 8pm to finish. However, every Friday, it seemed like the atmosphere was not too heavy. Even if I had to teach for eight hours, it was not that exhausting at all.. Maybe because I was looking forward to Friday nights or weekends, as much as I look forward to Pay Day.
Koreans and Japanese university students love having a party every Friday night. If you have seen in kdramas or in jdramas how their parties are like... well, it's not just a simple party, but really a big happy party where there are drinks, food, games with dares, karaoke, and other sort of things. Even if you were not a party goer like me, you would still enjoy the food and their companies, and even the atmosphere. It was also a good time to talk to other students whom you do not know and to learn about each other's cultures. Actually, all the party scenes in my books or short stories were inspired by the good times I had joining those parties. Sometimes, they would rent a place and cook their popular dishes and share them with us. This is why I learned how to make Okonomiyaki. For filipinos, after drinking, usually, people go home right? However, for the japanese and koreans, sometimes, one place is not enough. They would still go to another place for the second party. We had a 12 midnight curfew at the campus every Friday night. It was very usual to hear students vomiting or shouting when they come back.) Strange but I miss those days.
Meanwhile, koreans and japanese adults love inviting their teachers for dinner. Even if it was just Wednesday or Thursday, it was quite common to be asked by a student to go out for dinner on Friday nights. Some of them even have their memos. (Well, I think many koreans and japanese bring their own memos with them, so whenever they set a plan, they write it and they will remind you about it when the plan is near). You might think that I go out with them all the time, but actually, nope. Most of the time, students would pay for their teacher's meal, and because I wasn't that kind of a person, I would never go out with my students when I knew that I did not have money, and as much as possible, I did not like other people treating me. I also did not like going out with a male student alone no matter how close we were because it usually led to dating issues. I remember being asked by one of my closest japanese students before (his name is Shunsuke) to eat in Greenwhich when he lost a bet. The bet was: When he leveled up to Advance 1, I would buy him a meal, if he didn't, he said, both of us would eat in Greenwhich together (at that time, dating issues were a hot topic at the campus, but ofcourse, nothing was between us, so we did not care.). I agreed because I knew he would level up anyway, and buying him a meal would not be a problem since he loves to eat anything. Moreover, I agreed with the bet because I wanted to encourage him. However, he did not level up. It was funny though because when he showed the result of his level test (it occurs every month), he said, "I could not level up." with disappointment on his face, but after a while, he smiled and said. "But it means we can eat in Greenwhich." I thought he was just joking, but he reminded me about it after my 5pm class. Did I agree to go out with him? (because if I did, it seemed like we would go on a date.). well.. NOPE. I gave him a signal that we could not go out alone, and he understood. Well, the ending. He went to Greenwhich and took out one big box of pizza and brought it at school and we ate in Bahay Kubo (our school has a lot of kubos where people could stay to study or eat) Did both of us only eat it? Nope. Ofcourse, we invited another teacher who is also my close friend. He bullied me that I was scared of being in a rumor, and I answered back, " I don't wanna be in a rumor with you.".
ESL world is like a party. You can meet different kinds of people. You can learn diverse culture. Nevertheless, as a teacher, let us not forget that we must have a pride and dignity.
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