Terrible. Terrible.

One of the students’ recent assignments was to write a classic 5 paragraph essay. We created the outline in class; the students were to develop it into an essay for homework. The topic was Korea – Introduction, Geography, History, Culture, Conclusion. Most of the essays were pretty similar. Korea is a peninsula. It is surrounded by an east sea, a south sea, and a west sea. There are many beautiful mountains in Korea. Korea has fought in many wars. Korean traditional dress is the hanbok. Koreans love to eat kimchi.

But today, I read an essay that was not only well written, but more interesting than usual. This student had highlighted many historical facts that others had not. He not only listed the wars Korea had fought, but gave an anecdote to accompany each. This was my favorite:

“MyongNaRa was a war with China. They attacked Korea and a lot of people died. They stole pigs and beautiful girls. Korea’s king had to bow 20 times. It was terrible, terrible.”

It made me wonder, why did the Chinese decide only to steal pigs and beautiful girls?