The first hour is for today’s expressions. Before the lesson, a short animation shows a foreigner who has come to a public office to extend a stay, and now has to file an application in order to pay a fine. Public documents confuse Koreans too, the teacher says, so the class first looks at what kinds there are. They talk about a marriage registration — the form that records a marriage to a Korean — and about how it felt to file one. Procedures in Ghana and Uzbekistan come up as well. In Uzbekistan, the writer was told, a marriage application and a health-check result have to be submitted, and there is a three-month wait, a cooling-off period meant to discourage divorce. In Ghana, the account says, the marriage is complete when vows are made in church, without particular official papers. Because marriage leads to children, they also study a birth registration, and then a family-relation certificate, which proves the tie to a spouse and to children. Maria finds it strange that a public office asks for a photocopy of an ID card. At first she was uneasy; the custom differed from Uzbekistan, and she consulted her husband before submitting a copy. Timothy, who would need to be paid for a broadcast appearance, was frightened when a copy of a bankbook was required. The teacher explains that this copy is the front of the passbook, showing the bank’s name, the account number, and the account holder. After the documents, the class turns to kinds of public offices: the immigration office and why a visa may need extending — they study the word for “extension” itself — the community center and the district office, and the public health center, where one can have a checkup or a vaccination. The second hour is for using the language correctly, and the grammar is the connective that gives a reason or a purpose for what follows.

The example offered in class is that someone cannot go to the immigration office because they are looking after a child. Students also join “buy a present for a girlfriend” with “spend the whole paycheck,” and “stay up all night studying for an exam” with “get no sleep.” Last, they watch a clip from a program about multicultural mothers- and daughters-in-law, in which a Cambodian daughter-in-law, raising three children, preparing for a high-school equivalency exam, and taking a computer class at a center, is hurt when her mother-in-law scolds her for being tired and not cleaning properly. The same connective can smooth her thought: looking after three children is what makes the cleaning hard. The third hour is for questions and for knowing Korea. The first item is a tradition in which neighbors gather to make kimchi before winter; the choices include a circle dance, napa cabbage, a New Year fire-play, and kimjang, and kimjang is the answer. A short film on that culture is shown, and the sharing of work and of food is introduced; the foreign guests talk about their own kimjang. Clips of the fire-play, the first full moon of the year, and the circle dance follow, and the guests describe traditional games at home. In Uzbekistan, wool is stuck to a stone and kicked like a shuttlecock; in Ghana, grass is tied into a ball and kicked in a similar way. The writer finds it striking that Korea, Ghana, and Uzbekistan all have a game close to kicking a shuttlecock, though the countries differ. They watch the film once more and review the day. In a short reflection, the writer feels that twenty-six minutes covered words needed for life in Korea, some grammar, and a traditional culture, and covered them well. The public-office terms in episode seven can confuse Koreans who are new to adult life, and would be harder still for foreigners, who have to visit immigration offices, community centers, and health centers regularly to extend a stay, obtain papers, or get inexpensive care. The class is not a one-way lecture: it proceeds through conversation between the host and the guests, and one can also hear how things are done in the guests’ countries, so a viewer from Uzbekistan or Ghana might feel spoken to. The same Korean report, at fuller length, is on CampusDown.