English Dramatics Club
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By Nam Sang-so
A soft female voice called "Grandfather” behind me while I was looking in a shop window in Myeong-dong, Seoul.
I could see in the large display the colorful reflection of a young couple holding hands. The woman was tall, beautiful in her mid 20s, and wore a scarlet coat. Black winter stockings tightly wrapped her long legs and her hair was chestnut. The boy wore a military camouflage combat uniform, with four horizontal bars on his field cap indicating that he was soon to be discharged. Their smiles were beaming at me, reflected in the glass.
I turned around and said "Excuse me, but…” "Sir, I was Nolbu and she was Heungbu’s wife in the English Dramatics Club you organized at Yeouido Elementary School,” the soldier politely cut in, speaking in unaccented English.
"Ah, yes, I remember you. You were fine actors… Didn’t she pull your baggy trousers down when she begged for a bowl of rice on the stage?” I said pointing my eyes at her.
"It was embarrassing, really. I was overacting a bit but that’s what you taught us, didn’t you?” Now, she blames me. ``My belt wasn’t tight enough to hold the loose trousers of Nolbu,” the boy and girl chuckled heartily.
"We learned English the easy way. Thank you, sir,” they echoed. I was happy. "Come on, I’d like to buy you coffee and doughnuts,” and we stepped into a Starbucks.
Nolbu and Heungbu are the two protagonists in “The Story of Two Brothers,” a popular Korean folktale. Nolbu is the elder brother who was extremely greedy and vindictive while his brother, Heungbu, was a hard worker but very poor and led a pitiable life but becomes very rich being honest and kind to others.
The story fits well for a children’s play and I’d dramatized it for the student drama club I had created some 12 years ago. Nolbu’s house had an expensive-looking Korean tiled roof and Heungbu lived in a small thatched house with a swallow’s nest under the eaves. A swallow drops a gourd seed onto his yard in the spring, which produces many treasures in the autumn. The backdrops were painted by the children on paper glued onto veneer boards.
When I put an animated recruitment bill on the wall of the school’s entrance hall, half of the fifth and sixth graders, more girls than boys, volunteered to join the club. Half of the aspiring 12- and 13-year old actors had had spent time in England, France, the United States, India, Hong Kong and the Philippines.
The children’s zeal to practice English was astonishing and they couldn’t wait for the after-school rehearsals in the auditorium. Their mothers came to see them practice and were amazed and very happy to see that their children could converse in such fine English on the stage. The Seoul Education Board sent observers and a visiting group from the Russian education authority came to see the play.
The government is proposing a six month serenity period without heavy study during middle school. It would be a golden opportunity to perform English plays at school. Children would flood into auditoriums instead of cram schools, having a wonderful time speaking English among themselves.
Now, the young couple I met shares a deep love of English.
The writer is a retired architect-specifications writer who lives in Seoul and New Jersey. His email address is sangsonam@gmail.com.