Stories from Korea.

Right now it's really late and I can't sleep, so rather than toss and turn I thought I should write.
Lately I've been thinking that I need to record some of my Korea stories for posterity. In truth I am trying to write a long story, recording the whole experience from start to end, however I have run into a few roadblocks. First I've decided to write everything in the present tense, which is difficult. Also it's emotional for me. I discovered some things about myself and about people in general while I was there, and it shook me to the core. I still lament over some decisions I made while I was there and wonder if the outcome could have been better. Anyhow I digress I have a great story for you tonight.
In my opinion for a story to be great it should have one of 3 things. There should be cute children, bodily functions or me going red in the face. This story has them all!
So while I was teaching in Korea I was the only foreigner at my school who would teach the "Puppy Class" which were the 36-38 month old children. I thought that they were the sweetest little kidlets around, and they really and truly liked me and I was more than happy to teach them everyday. The class was comprised of 10 students and I taught them at the end of my kindie shift, and I was their last teacher of the day. In order to make everything smoother I let them play a little more and there wasn't so much teaching happening as playing in English. Which I thought was more than appropriate since they were 3 years old and had been at school for nearly 7 hours. We played modified games of "Red Light Green Light", "Duck Duck Goose" and various singing games that I would make up. Then in August our stingy boss was convinced by us that he should buy the school some play doh for the kids. It was great because it was stifling that August and the kids were listless by my class and it was hard to really motivate them to play an active game. So we often played with play doh, as did many of the other teachers, both Korean and foreign.
Then one particularly hot August day one of the little boys came into my class late, smelling his fingers as the children often did, reveling in the play doh-ey smell. He crawled into my lap, which was empty because I was hot and wasn't in the mood to be climbed all over by hot, sweaty 3 year olds. However I allowed him because he was notoriously clingy and I didn't need a battle at that time, and the other kids were happily playing with my play doh, and didn't fuss that I was playing favorites.
So as this little Korean angel sat in my lap, one hand playing with my hair and the other sniffing his little fingers he looks at me and says in Korean: "teacher, smell", and jams his fingers under my nose. I oblige assuming that they would be play doh-ey and went ahead and took an exaggerated sniff to amuse him. But noooooo, it was not play doh that assaulted my sensitive nostrils. It was much, much more heinous. Fearing the worst I asked him in Korean: "What is that?" He looked up at me, smiling his goofy smile, which smushes his face up, making his eyes perfect little half moons and says (in Korean): "it's poo!"
Suppressing the urge to jump up and dump this little deviant off my knee so I could run out of the room and scrub the poo smell off of my offended nose; I ruffle his hair and made some comment about him being a bowl of cherries and order him, in Korean, to go and wash his hands, with soap.
For the rest of the class all I could think about was that I have done it all as a teacher now. I had smelled the pooey fingers of a student, and I just knew that his other hand was also contaminated, as was my hair. I also lamented that I had to teach for another 5 hours, knowing I had tiny poo particles in my hair.