Kids Say the Darndest Things...

So, I'm back in the full swing of school and classes after a month and a two month "holiday season" that saw Christmas, New Years, Lunar New Years, and the end of the term. It is a new school year which means new teachers and new students.

To start my classes, I asked the students I already knew from the previous year that have now advanced one grade, "What did you do during vacation?"

The intent was to ease them back into speaking English and for me to get to know what they did. Here was one unusual exchange:

One male student exclaimed, "Surgery!"
I asked, "Surgery? Why?"
The student said, "Um...to become a man."
I had no clue what that meant. He explained it to the female Korean teacher. She blushed and covered her mouth. I decided to move on.

I was still puzzled. Did he mean circumcision? What could me mean. Well, he meant surgery to make him a man. Quite literally. I guess the kid was intersex, and now they've made him a man.

I haven't every encountered the issue of intersexuality mainly because its usually something that isn't discussed publicly. To have a student blurt it out means that he's not embarrassed about it. The kid's one of the more popular kids in his age so I guess the kids just accepted it.