Learning about Snack

Last week at my academy I saw some 2nd grade students had arrived early for class (we start at 2:30 pm).  One girl was chewing on something, and I saw that she had a food storage box.

"Do you have a snack today?" I asked.

She shook her head and continued chewing.

Curious, I asked her, pointing at the food box, "What's that?"

"Melon," she replied.

"So you have melon snack today?"

She shook her head again.

"That's food, right?" I prompted, thinking maybe she didn't understand.

"Yes," she responded.

"It's snack, yes?"

"No."

I was beginning to feel a bit frustrated, because it was just the right amount of melon--cut up into bite sized pieces, to be a snack; clearly, it wasn't going to be dinner or anything else.

Just when I was about to try a new line of questioning, the girl's friend piped up.

"That's snack," she said, pointing at a boy in the same room who held a bag of potato chips.

Ahh!  The light dawned.  (And I later confirmed my guess with a Korean teacher).

For these Korean students "snack" = a certain kind of food: chips, cookies, etc.

For me, however, and I think for most westerners, "snack" = a small amount of food that is eaten between meals; it doesn't matter what kind of food it is.

Hmm . . . interesting.  And another reason that I like teaching kids in Korea: I'm always learning something new.