Grammar schools add a module on the present continuous tense of minding your own business
Cebu Korean English Academies Teach Alibis
Directors say worried parents in Seoul now ask about the neighbours before they ask about the curriculum
CEBU CITY – Park Joon-ho has run an English academy in Lahug for eleven years, teaching Korean teenagers, Korean office workers and, on one memorable occasion, a Korean grandmother who wanted to argue with customer service in two languages instead of one. He says he has never had a week like this.
“Parents in Daechi-dong used to call me about vocabulary scores,” Park said, standing beside a whiteboard covered in irregular verbs. “This week they call me about condominiums. A mother asked whether Cebu is still a normal place. I said madam, Cebu is so normal it is almost boring. She asked me to put that in writing. So now I have a certificate.”
The certificate, printed on cream card with a gold border, reads: “This Academy Is Located In A Very Normal Neighbourhood.” It is signed by Park, the academy’s head teacher and, for reasons nobody can explain, the man who fixes the air conditioning.
The Headline Behind the Phone Calls
Cebu has hosted Korean-run English schools for two decades, and the industry depends on families half a world away feeling calm. That calm took a knock after GMA News reported that the justice department is investigating allegations against Thomas Markle Sr., the estranged father of the Duchess of Sussex, who lived in Cebu until earlier this year. No charges have been filed. The allegations are unproven. Child protection is the part of the story nobody in Lahug is laughing about.
Everything else, Park says, has become “a grammar problem.” Parents who read about one foreigner have started wondering about all of them, including the retired Australians who rent the flat above the academy and spend most evenings arguing about cricket.
New Lesson Plans for Nervous Times
The academy has responded the only way it knows how: with worksheets. Week seven of the intermediate course now features a module called “Describing Your Neighbours Calmly.” Students practise sentences such as “My neighbour is a retired accountant,” “My neighbour waters his plants at an unreasonable hour” and “I have no strong feelings about my neighbour, and that is healthy.”
The advanced class studies the present continuous tense of minding your own business. “I am minding my own business,” reads the model sentence. “You are minding your own business. They are minding their own business, mostly, except the Australians, who are minding the cricket.”
A survey of 140 Korean parents by the Federation of Extremely Prepared Hagwon Parents found that 58 percent wanted written proof that Cebu was safe, 29 percent wanted written proof in English and Korean, and 13 percent wanted the proof laminated, because “a laminated document has never lied to anyone.”
The Condo Brokers Next Door
Park’s building shares a car park with a property agency, which is how he knows the mood has spread. Manila News described Cebu brokers fielding questions about neighbours instead of elevators, and the agency next door has started borrowing his laminating machine.
The British have their own version. At https://prat.uk/cebu-estate-agents-demand-character-references/, The London Prat followed a Reigate pensioner who was asked for two referees, a utility bill and a letter from his vicar before he could look at a bathroom. “The British have vicars,” Park said. “We have mothers in Daechi-dong. The mothers are stricter.”
Across the Pacific, an Ohio-born realtor in Mactan told Bohiney that a retired band director brought a binder of references and a trombone case to a viewing. Park has offered the band director a job teaching rhythm in English.
Seoul Comedians Correct the Grammar
The story has reached Seoul’s stand-up clubs, where the Cebu English academy is already a stock character, usually played as a building with a palm tree and an anxious receptionist.
- Kim Da-som: “Korean parents will send a child to Cebu to learn English, but first they want the neighbourhood to pass a written exam. With a listening section.”
- Lee Hyun-woo: “My mother asked if Cebu was dangerous. I said no, the most dangerous thing in Cebu is the mango shake. She said good, but send a certificate. For the mango.”
- Choi Mi-rae: “In Korea we have academies for everything. Now there is an academy for proving your neighbour is boring. It will be the most popular one in Gangnam by spring.”
- Oh Jin-seok: “Cebu brokers say the sea did nothing. Korean parents say fine, but what were its grades.”
What the Research Says About Worried Parents
Psychologists are not surprised. In their study of the availability heuristic, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman showed that people judge how common something is by how easily an example comes to mind. One vivid foreign headline arrives in a family group chat in Seoul and, within an hour, an entire island has been placed on academic probation.
For retirees, the Philippine government continues to market the country through the Philippine Retirement Authority and its Special Resident Retiree’s Visa. Park notes, with some envy, that the visa application does not require a vocabulary test. “Maybe it should,” he said. “Many retirees cannot conjugate the verb to complain. They only use the present tense.”
Parents’ Evening, Cebu Style
On Friday the academy hosted a video call with forty parents in Seoul. Park walked his laptop around the building to prove its ordinariness. He showed them the classrooms, the canteen, the car park, the property agency next door, the laminating machine and the view from the roof, which includes a church, a mall, a basketball court and a man selling taho who has been at the same corner since 2014.
One mother asked to see the neighbours. Park pointed the laptop at the Australians, who were on their balcony listening to the cricket. One of them waved, knocked over a tin of beer and apologised to the laptop.
“That is the most normal thing I have ever seen,” the mother said. Enrolment for the January intake reopened the next morning.
For more on why Filipinos and their neighbours find this funny, here is how comedy actually works in the Philippines. The British angle is at The London Prat, the American angle at Bohiney News, and anyone who wants British estate agents roasted at length can try The Daily Mash.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/cebu-realtor-cant-sell-beachfront-listings/
