It’s not BlogSpot this time. It’s not even the Great Firewall. Actually, it’s not online at all.

It’s a play by a bunch of 9-to-12-year-olds that involves a volcano and homework not being turned in. Who could possibly be offended?

Here’s what happened: Part of my job at this English camp in Seoul is a group project, where I have to get 10 kids, elementary school age, who are supposed to be on vacation, to give some kind of performance in front of their parents, mostly to show off how much English I’ve taught them.

I decided it would be fun to do a little fake newscast. For added entertainment, I made one segment about a volcano erupting next to the university and burning down the camp. The punch line (yes, I’m making disaster jokes) is when one kid says: “The children are happy because now there’s no homework.”

Maybe it’s a bad joke. Comedy is not my strong suit. And all of this is in special English, so maybe it loses something. Whatever the reason, one of the camp managers grabbed me as I was leaving today, hungry and in need of a beer, to tell me to change the script.

If parents hear their kids celebrating the idea of not having homework, they might think we’re instilling poor values in the camp, she told me. Also, some other people at the university that houses the camp might be offended if I write a tongue-in-cheek story about their school being consumed in lakes of fire.

Now, I’m new to Korea and it’s possible this is a cultural thing. Is she telling me there are kids somewhere that like homework? And like getting it over winter break?

In truth, the bit about no homework was half the kids idea and half mine. The kids also wanted to have everyone burned to death by lava. I nixed that one.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 16th, 2007 at 8:08 am and is filed under roadside blogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.