My life as a psychiatrist

Lately, I've taken on a different kind of role. Besides the teaching, we're often asked to be life-counselors, comedians, performers of all kinds and, most of all, monkeys. The past six months, I've been developing my psychiatry skills.

I started teaching Shunter about six months ago. Usually, this is the kind of class that the teachers dread. He's a very prominent, serious business professor nearing 60 years old. At that age and status, Korean men tend to be very stoic and mum. They possess a vocabulary higher than my own but they can't string together 4 words without bombarding their listener with um's and half the class is spent in deliberation of the appropriate next word. Shunter was exactly this student when we started. I used to get lost in my own thoughts as he tried to explain his family and then I'd quickly have to come back to reality and try and act like I was listening. But, through it all, he was as sweet as the girl next door and equally as dull.

I remember in particular asking him once if he'd ever had a bad date. This was his answer:
"my wife was the only women I've dated. And every moment with her is perfect. So I haven't ever had a bad date." - that's about as boring as an answer could be but, looking in his eyes, reading his honesty, I could only feel envious and touched by his benevolence. This is a feeling I often get here in Korea.

We went along like this, me dreading the class and him fumbling through, until recently. Since I came back from my Korean odyssey, he's had so much more to say. Instead of giving one quick sentence, he now elaborates on things and doesn't want to look at any textbook. Our classes now are natural conversations you'd have with a friend about politics, demands of work, weather, current events, ect. And through these conversations, I've noticed something. He views me as his confessional.

As he reluctantly admitted after months of prying, he's big time. Shunter's the top financial researcher in the country. He's often flown around the world to speak at international conferences and receives constant grants to publish academic papers in journals. When it comes to finance, he's Korea's man.

But he's an extreme introvert. He doesn't talk much to anyone and all most people know about him is his research. And yet he comes into my class bearing his soul in our 1 on 1 discussions twice a week. He's begun to tell me about all the political corruption occurring in the university and his department. He tells me about the little things that annoy him about all the frauds in the academic world. He tells me about the real Korea and I love every minute of it. The class has become a highlight of my week. And, like a good psychiatrist, I nod my head, say things like "yes, um...., ok..., please continue, etc," and he gets everything off his chest.

And he too loves the chance to sit in a room with a foreigner, so completely disconnected from his world, that he can divulge everything. I think we're both learning from this cathartic experience. This is one of those situations where teaching English conversation transcends the usual boundaries of learning.