Fight!

Yesterday I was in class blabbing incomprehensibly in English like always, when, from the other side of the classroom, there was an unwelcome clatter of kids yapping and chairs sliding around, like always. I directed my attention to the two third-grade boys who were horsing around, play-fighting, and thought, "Great, more distractions." They were swinging their fists and wailing on each other pretty hard and it it took me a second to realize this was actually a fight.

I don't know really how the other 38 kids in the class were reacting because I was so surprised I had a real fight in my class, something exciting for a change. My co-teacher ran over and was yelling at them and trying to make them stop, but they were evidently too determined to keep wailing on each other so I rushed over and got in between them which proved still inadequate to get them to stop hitting each other, so I pushed them apart, sending one to the ground accidentally. I also had to drop my paper and pencil, dammit.

This seemed to get them to stop trying to kill each other temporarily. My co-teacher led them from the classroom into my office which is connected to the classroom by a door in the rear. I foolishly tried to resume my lesson, which was a fun Scattergories-style vocabulary game since my week's intended lesson had bombed due partly to the fact that it sucked, and partly to the fact that it was the last week of school before summer break and the kids probably cared less than I did. My attempt to regain control of the class failed, needless to say. And furthermore, a moment after the two brawlers were led out of my classroom, we all heard the sounds of scuffling in my office, so I had to go see what they were up to in there.

When I got into my office the kids were separated again, but screaming at each other and cursing their brains off, which I knew because I have made a decent survey of Korean swear words, and I could pick out 'ssi-bal!' at least a dozen times, which is the Korean equivalent of 'fuck'. The co-teacher was by now leading them from my office out of the door and into the hallway, with me trailing behind, but before they could make it to the door their curses turned to blows again and the fists started hitting faces. All in all, this was a much more exciting fight than the only other fight I witnessed in Korea, which was in Bucheon, partway between Seoul and Incheon. That fight happened late at night, after some friends and I got out of a norae-bang with some random English-enthusiast Korean kids. That fight was outside of an arcade or something, and the kids were maybe early twenties and were throwing the most rubbery girl-punches I have ever seen, and kicking people like they didn't even care. It was entertaining for sure, and I give them credit for the duration, since they kept starting and stopping, but it was a pretty sissy display of violence.

So by the time I realized that my two students were pounding each other in the face inside of my office door, they had each landed a few punches, and I pulled them apart yet again. My co-teacher led the one she had control of out of the room to who knows where, and I had the kid that was still with me just sit at the little table in my office and cool down. I went back into my classroom where the kids were chattering about the fight, I'm sure, and put on a movie which I just happened to have lurking on my computer for months, a documentary film about an international breakdancing competition called Planet B-Boy, which is a sick film and features two Korean teams. This got the classes attention after the wild interruption.

The film was on for a bit and my co-teacher had returned and I just let the kids watch the film for the last 25 minutes of class rather than trying to get them to do something productive. Watching Planet B-Boy was a good choice, I probably haven't seen so many kids pay attention to something in my classroom ever, or at least not make any noise.

I had previously noticed a few drops of blood on my sleeve, but it wasn't until after class that I noticed there was a splash on my arm too, I guess from the kid who I had kept in my office. His shirt was also bloody and he had a black eye already and the teacher with whom I shared my office had come back to her desk and told me after class the kid said he was ashamed he got hit so much. I guess you could say he was the loser of the fight. He was also the one I had accidentally pushed to the ground when I was first trying to separate them in the classroom. I asked the reason for the fight, and apparently one of the boys had 'playfully' slapped the other one, who had not taken the slap so playfully. "Maybe it's because of the weather," she said, but I have never punched someone in the face because it was humid and hot. "Boys will fight sometimes," she said, and I asked if there was any punishment for them, or if their parents were informed or anything. "No," she said, "because they are good boys," she said, and I mentally added the obligatory "usually".

After the class, when I had removed my shirt to wash it in the sink in my office to try to get as much of the blood out of it as I could, the two boys came to me to apologize. Their faces were red, not from embarrassment, but from getting punched, and they were cheerful and unaccompanied, and comfortable with each other as they are friends apparently. I said it was no problem, and told them to be nice, and they left and that was the end of that.