White day and ddong chim

So today was a great, yet interesting, and down right bizarre day at school.

Today was actually “White Day”. Let me explain: in Korea, on Valentines day, that is the day of the year that girls buy boys chocolates or other gifts. However, they also have White day exactly a month later. On White day, that is when the boys are to buy the girls gifts. Even though my first experience was of White day was in an elementary school, it didn’t seem like a western valentines day where you give a gift to a special someone. It was pretty much everyone gives something to all their friends or anyone they like. At first I was shocked when my students started giving me candy randomly in the corridor, but after I asked my co-teacher it all made sense. Kind of.

By my first lesson of the day with my 2nd grade class, my back pocket was already bulging with candy that I’d been given. And this is where my day turned rather bizarre. Towards the end of the lesson, we were playing a game which involved students coming up to the board, and as one kid came to the board, he took his turn, and as I turned to the board for a second to clear the board for the start of a new game, I suddenly felt tiny fingers thrust their way into my bum, followed by a chorus of giggles. I had become a victim of ddong chim, literally translated as poop needle….

It's so well known, there's even a statue dedicated to it.

I’d first discovered such a thing in the Japanese anime Naruto, many many years ago. My reaction to it was confusion, feeling awkward, and not really understanding why or what happened, but I brushed it off and moved on. I’d also heard of it in Korea before I arrived, but I didn't think it was at all common place, nor did it even cross my mind that it would happen to me…oh how wrong I was.


I had one of two options. Option 1: laugh, brush it off and tell him to go sit down. Option 2: Scold the kid in front of the class and terrify everyone to the point that they don’t feel like they can have fun with me in the English class anymore. I chose option 1, which naturally worked out for the better. My initial reaction was to remove his hand and look at him with a look of complete shock, but then I said “what are you doing? Go and sit down,” with a bit of a giggle. The kid got half way to his seat and said “candy juseyo” which means “please give me candy”. He’d  seen my overflowing back pocket. Then I made my next big mistake. As I went to bend down to get to his level, again, I felt the bizarre sensation of tiny fingers thrusting into my rear end. Another kid has snuck behind me in my moment of weakness. At this point I felt like I was in Jurassic Park and I’d been caught be two velicoraptors, one on either side of me.

With that I cried “YA!" (Hey!), and the two kids ran back to their seats giggling. I then proceeded to share my candy with the rest of the class who were well behaved and gave those two boys the pleasure of sticking my tongue out at them.

But the loss of candy didn’t bother me, I was reimbursed by other kids in the school. The rest of the day was also pretty hectic, with all this candy flying round the entire school was hyperactive all day. The corridors were also filled with the sound of students campaigning for votes from the other students because today was the day that the students voted for their student representatives. I was exhausted and relieved by the time my last lesson of the day came round. The icing on the cake was that my last lesson was cancelled due the student candidate performances, and the voting for the representatives.