Noodles on the 7-11 Counter

He slurped his noodles noisily, steam fogging his plastic coke bottle lenses as the salty tang of cardboard spice dripped down his chin. As he gorged, he half-consciously inhaled the woody permeation of the cardboard bowl and chopsticks and reflected on how, when he had first arrived, he’d scorned the sloppy noodle slurpers in disgust. So many things had changed since then. It was amazing how much one’s perspective could adapt (or conform) to its cultural context.

It had happened in ways more grandiose than conforming to noodle slurping, but even in simple things like temperature and currency and units of measurement, he no longer converted to the American standard, instead, he understood unflinchingly what -12 Celcius meant, and how far he was running when he ran 8km. He now referred to weight as “kg,” not kilograms, not kilo, but “kg.” The day he realized that was the day he knew he was changing.

Yet he still wondered if he would know how to be a proper adult when he returned to his home country, if he ever did. Here, it was so easy to live the care-free college lifestyle: work, money on hand, minimal apartment bills, no transportation worries, and the excuse of language ignorance when help was needed, particularly with housekeeping or banking worries. Since he’d moved here right after turning 21, he reckoned he’d have a few rough wakeup calls once he started making car payments and paying taxes and rent. He knew deep down that he was still a naive little puppy.

He had learned a lot through teaching, but much of what he had learned was simply how to mask his untrained instinct in a professional fashion. He’d also learned that the world of grown ups was surprisingly petty. He’d always thought grownups were smart, professional, and that they behaved according to a much higher protocol than immature adolescents and uni students.

Not so.

One of the first things he’d written in his journal upon entering the “professional” world was: “The world of adults is a curious thing. He’d met some of his best friends and some brilliant people abroad, yet he’d also met some of the dumbest. Overall, he realized that the world of adults is a majority of children, just bigger-sized, and with more access to creating permanent damage. How had he never realized this before? He’d always known there were stupid adults: but those were the hicks, the KKK, the flag-toting ignorami who didn’t really matter anyway.

Weren’t they?

Sometimes he wondered what the world would be like if it were made of smarter people, like himself. He acknowledged his own intelligence nonchalantly, as a matter of course, as if taking a casual bite of morning toast to soak his eggs and coffee (buttered toast with marmalade on Tuesdays just seems to follow). What if everyone treated children in the same way he did: in a professional manner, with high expectations but plenty of rewards and love for those who tried hard and especially those who succeeded. The problem, he though, munching through the last of his noodles, Is that people BECOME teachers of young children because they’re too stupid and soft-hearted to do anything else. The main proof being his encounters with elem. ed majors in college, whom, with the exception of one, had all been flaky, stupid, and endlessly busy with busywork and construction paper. If nothing else, elementary teachers weren’t very environmentally friendly.

But the majority of English teachers abroad didn’t even go to school for that career. So that wasn’t the problem with the idiots here. The problem with these weirdos was the binge boozing (and subsequent barfights, and pointless hours of smoke-infused conversation, in which killing time became a lifetime), and video gaming that not only consumed all freetime of certain unmentionable acquaintances, but also consumed water cooler conversation. I guess when you don’t own cars and you’ve got permanent women, and you don’t stray far from your neighborhood, and your mantra of “need to save money” becomes a constant due to excessive aforementioned boozing…

Oh, what the hell. Criticizing his coworkers had become the only focusable entertainment in the office these days. One and a half years into his job, and he was outrageously bored.

In fact, he’d been bored for a while, saved in the eleventh month by a schedule transition which gave him higher-level classes and less classroom time. A glorious Autumn passed in this way. All too soon, vacation was over and he was back to saving his school from another embarrassing demise by taking over more preschool classes. Despite his 12 hour work days, the teaching was 80% tedious, and the prep-time more so. He missed having to wrack his brains for charts and supplements to teach reading and debate to brilliant fourth graders and sixth graders. He missed the exhilaration of running upper elementary classrooms modeled after his own university experience, and having the students understand and apply that knowledge. Smart kids are awesome. Smart kids can rule the world.

It’s not even like you have to be a genius. Just use a little common sense.

He sighed and took a long, diminishing pull from his water bottle. The noodles were hot inside him: expanding his belly; making him warm. He nodded solicitously to the boys next to him, in letter jackets and skinny jeans, slurping and laughing over their own steaming noodles. Bowing to the shopkeeper who saluted him goodbye, he slouched his way home.