A couple days ago a man was arrested for going to his upstairs neighbor's apartment with a hammer and denting in the door with it until the police were called to haul him away. The reason for this psychotic behavior? Children. A gaggle of children was apparently making a ruckus, and the man, who had requested they keep it down in the past, lost it.

I SO sympathize.

From what I've seen, young Korean children tend to be spoiled by their parents. I don't know how much parents spoil 'em in comparison with American kids, but I think it might be worse here. For example, two days ago, I was walking home, and there were two mothers on bikes, with their young boys behind them. The boys were perhaps 5 years old. They got into a screaming contest, simply to see who could be louder. As they were sitting right behind their mothers, their mothers got the full brunt of the screaming (the high pitched, earsplitting squeals of children, no less). Even so, neither mother made any sort of admonishment. None! I heard one saying mildly, as she pedaled away, "My goodness, that's loud." But there was no request to "keep it down, I'm going deaf here!" nor reminder that "not everyone wants to hear you so loudly, dear."

(Of course of course of course, you can go too far the other way. I distinctly remember riding Metro North once during college, when a blonde Westchester type sat down with her two blonde Abercrombie and Fitch prototype sons, who were about 5 and 8. The younger kid stood up at one point, and was a few inches away from accidentally stepping on my foot. So his mother said, in an extremely measured voice, "Kevin, look at your feet. You see your shoes? Now look behind you. You're about to step on that lady's foot. Move forward, now." This was one incident out of a couple in which the mother was icily in control. While the kids were extremely well-behaved, all I could think was, "See ya in therapy in 20 years.")

I asked my dad what he thought of Korean kids, and he agreed they were undisciplined. Yet somehow, they become these lean, mean, studying machines a few years later in life! Mystifying.

By the by, Salon ran a series on the pressures to have children just last week (in honor of Mother's Day). I agree it makes sense biologically, evolutionarily, socially to have children. I just seem to totally lack that desire, and lately, it worries me more than it has in the past. I did turn 27 this year, but far from the "my biological clock is going like this! [insert Marisa Tomei stamping her foot]" feeling, I hear a little whisper: "well, if you want to have children, most of your viable years have already passed" (the assumption being that, biologically speaking, I could have had children at age 15).
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I mentioned a long while ago that there is a single man at work who really desperately wants to get married and as a result comes off as totally desperate and inappropriate. (Like the time Myungsoo and I were walking arm-in-arm (a Korean girl thing -- I personally could do without it) and he said, "Oh, I want in!" and so we were all walking arm-in-arm and he said, "You know, someone seeing us would think Helen is my wife and Myungsoo is our friend." Stuff like that.)

Sometimes I can overlook the inappropriate stuff by reminding myself that this man is desperate and probably very lonely. However, I am hard pressed to overlook the prejudice.

Today, colleagues asked me, "Helen, why is 'cannot' one word when 'may not' and 'will not' are two?" (One of those "Why do Americans...?" questions I addressed on May 13.) I looked at them, thought that it was indeed strange, and answered, "That's a good question. I don't know. There's no reason. Or there is one, but I don't know it."

And Mr. Inappropriate said, "I know why -- because Americans are stupid."

Need I even comment on this? I wish I could have come up with an equally reasonless grammatical twitch in Korean, of which there are plenty, but I couldn't, and so let it pass in the general discussion that followed. But my GOD! If there's anything I hate in the world, it's people who make sweeping generalizations on the basis of exactly NOTHING. Just SHUT UP!!!! I hate you!
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Had midterms today. Studied very, very little. Probably less than I have for any test I've ever taken. Less than I studied for the DMV written exam!

Consequently, had some trouble with the writing test and the speaking test, but did fine (I think) on the listening part. Ah well.