Something awesome almost just about was going to happen at the talent show on the final night of camp.

Almost. Just about.

Before we get to the awesome part we have to cover some background though. Here at camp every student wears a name card in a plastic holder on a string. You may have seen them in some of the pictures I’ve been posting. Ok so, each teacher, along with our own name tags, was issued a sheet of red dot stickers. When we catch a kid speaking Korean or engaged in some other act of dereliction we are supposed to put a sticker on the back of the student’s nametag (and sign across it as well, cause, you know). When the delinquent student gets three stickers they have to go visit the district supervisor. The original plan was to call the child’s parents when that happened. But the way the stickers are flying around here they would have had to outsource that job to a call center in Bangalore. For the record, I am a big old softie when it comes to the handing out of red stickers. In two weeks I’ve given maybe five red stickers. Some Korean teachers are on their second sheet already.

A few days ago we had a lesson where we talked about different movie genres: comedy, science fiction, action, etc. For an activity some teachers had their kids make movie posters and describe their imaginary movie to the class. For an example, my friend, colleague, and camp roomie Patrick made a mock poster for a horror film called Attack of the Red Sticker.


That alone was pretty awesome, but then the next night in my drama club, the students were trying to come up with a scenario for the little skit they were supposed to write. They floundered for quite a while and then a student from Patrick’s class had a flash of brilliance. They decided to essentially bring his movie poster to life by creating a skit about an evil, deranged camp supervisor who goes around stickering kids to death. That right there was the awesome part. And it could have been something wonderful, a biting satire of camp life and of the camp supervisors.

The trouble is some of the staff got wind of it and expressed concern. I unfortunately, had to concede their point. I could see an American camp leader seeing such a parody and accepting it in good fun, but somehow I don’t think it would go over too well in these parts. As much as it pained me, I asked the kids to tone it down a little. As a suggestion, I offered the idea that maybe the supervisor could eat some bad food and that he could become deranged as a result of whatever disease he caught, then get cured at the end. That way he isn’t actually evil, but still gets to do evil things.

As it turns out, the whole point is moot. The kids decided they don’t want to perform their skit on the stage. All of them have to do performances with their classes as well, and they are just kind of over the whole idea. It was optional from the beginning, so I can’t force them, and wouldn’t anyway.


But it would have been awesome.