by Hardy Jones

You may think the title is hyperbolic, and while it is limited to the Koreans with whom I came into contact during my fifty-weeks teaching English there, I swear that it is true: the nicest Christian in South Korea was the cafeteria lady Mrs. Park.

Mrs. Park was a fifty-something Presbyterian who always said grace before she ate, wore white rubber boots in the kitchen, and was the only Korean co-worker whom I liked. From the latter part of 2001 thru the first half of 2002, I taught writing and literature at the Kyonggi-do Foreign Language Center in Anjung, South Korea. 

The Language Center had month-long intensive sessions for Korean English teachers who worked in Kyonggi-do province and between these sessions Mrs. Park, through the dietician’s limited English, offered to teach me Korean if I taught her English. 

When I initially arrived at the Language Center, I asked my immediate supervisor Mr. Kim if it would be possible to take Korean language classes. He looked up at me from his desk in our communal first-floor office, hissed slightly, and said, “No.”

“Having no knowledge of the language will make my life here difficult.”

“Yes. Yes it will.”

After such a direct and cold refusal I leapt at Mrs. Park’s offer. 

Our lessons, however, always devolved into ping-pong games, but not the cut-throat games other Koreans at the Language Center played. When she messed up a serve or failed to return one of mine, she muttered “Igo,” Korean roughly for “my bad.” As time went on, she felt more secure around me and her mutters turned into liberated yells, but our games remained laid back. At the end of every game, with exaggerated movement, she took my hand, pumped it three times, and said the one English expression she had mastered: “Keep up the good work!”

After months of playing ping-pong together my Korean did not expand, her English didn’t improve—perhaps I wasn’t that good of a teacher—and neither did my ping-pong ability. I worked at the Language Center for almost a year—my contract stated a year, but in the fine print it specified 50 weeks, more about that another time—and on Saturdays I was the only Western instructor who had lunch there. Chairman Choi, the LanguageCenter’s leader, with much histrionics, would invite me to sit at his table along with the supervisors. One Saturday toward the end of my time there, Chairman Choi was out of town for the weekend, and at the buffet line Mr. Kim and the other supervisors insisted that I fix my meal first. I did and I knew not to sit at Chairman Choi’s table against the far wall—from which he could watch the entire cafeteria when classes were in session—so I sat at the table closest to the buffet line. The supervisors came after me but sat two tables away from me. I felt more than slighted. I wanted to yell at them: I am human. You can talk to me when Chairman Choi is not around. They all had, after all, degrees in English. 

After we had fixed our plates and began eating, Mrs. Park and the dietician, a kindly faced pregnant woman, joined me. There were seats still available at the supervisors’ table and during other Saturday lunches when Chairman Choi had been absent, we all sat together. So Mrs. Park’s and the dietician’s actions were telling, and while they sat with me they whispered in Korean. Since I did not understand Korean, there was no reason for them to whisper in front of me, which lead me to believe that they were talking about the supervisors. Confirming this was Mrs. Park whispering, motioning towards me, cutting her eyes at the supervisors, and then she tapped the dietician’s elbow and whispered, which prompted the dietician to ask me: “Are you ok?”

“I’m fine. Thank you.”

“You sure? You look sad.”

Maybe the supervisors didn’t want to sit with me because the month prior the Western instructors had had their contracts renewed, but mine was not (I had not intended to work there another year, yet I never was given a clear explanation as to why I wasn’t asked back). Perhaps there was a stigma attached to me, and in the supervisors’ minds I was already “gone.” 

When the supervisors finished eating they said thank you to Mrs. Park and the dietician; the ladies answered weakly. I was glad to see their responses. After the supervisors left the cafeteria, Mrs. Park rapped the table with her knuckles and said, “Kopee?”—coffee; I smiled with watery eyes and said “kamsamnida”—thank you. We drank our coffee in silence, with the dietician drinking water, but having them with me softened the supervisors’ snub.

Korean culture is heavily influenced by Confucianism, which has a rigid hierarchal structure. Mrs. Park was only a cafeteria cook, she did not have a degree as the supervisors did and she did not speak English as the supervisors did. Her outward disappointment in them took courage on her part. Who is a lowly cafeteria worker to look down on these college educated supervisors who were working their ways up the Korean school board ladder? 

By sitting with me, Mrs. Park did a good work. 

To the nicest Christian in South Korea: Keep up the good work.