DUCK AND COVER: 21st century Bomb Drills

I've heard my parents talk about them and I've watched those grainy black and white educational videos from the 1950's that are so dated they're hysterical. I’m among the first generation of Americans to grow up in the post-Cold War era; I was just a year old when the Berlin Wall was sledge hammered to pieces in November of 1989. Whenever history class caught up to the 20th century I always had trouble understanding what all the Cold War fuss was about. But I get it now, even if only slightly, life in Korea is a tinderbox (thanks Wolf Blitzer) and no one knows who’s going to strike the match first.

Yesterday, we had a bomb drill. For the baby boomers out there you’ll be happy (or perhaps slightly horrified) to know that not much has changed in terms of bomb preparation and safety. I was in the middle of class when the voice of our vice principal came over the loud speaker followed by howling sirens. Mind you, my co-teacher failed to mention that this little bomb drill exercise was happening. Wearing my best dumb, confused idiot foreigner face I shuffled over to my co-teacher and asked her “Uh, what’s going on?” to which she responded, “Oh, this nothing. Just bomb training. Keep talking.”

I played it cool, don’t worry.

“Bomb training… right. So, when you say “bomb training” what does that mean I should be doing?”

“If there are bombs, we get under desks.”

Awesome. I feel totally safe now.

I ignored her instruction to keep talking over the loud speaker because this is after all my first bomb drill and so what if I can’t understand what he’s saying, I felt it was my duty as a bomb drill virgin to shut up and get ready to tuck into the fetal position as soon as he said the word (mmm that reminds me, I should look up “Shit, we’re being attacked,” in Google Translator just in case). I thought I’d magically become fluent in Korean I wanted to understand the announcement so badly.

As I scanned the room, it became obvious that I was the only one trying to pay attention. No one, I mean absolutely no one was paying any attention. My co-teacher was in the back of the class playing a one-sided version of tag (it was all in good fun though, I swear) while other students seemed to think it was nap time. I thought I’d try my luck with the few kids who managed to keep their eyes open and asked them to translate what the announcement was saying.

Student: “North Korea fire bomb uh uh under desk.”

Me: “What? When? Now? Should we get under the desk now?”

Student: “Uh uh I don’t know. This practice, okay?”

And that’s all I got. The announcement dragged on for another ten minutes and when not one student rehearsed the duck and cover protocol I had a laugh to myself. This drill seemed just as ridiculous as those videos I had watched in history class. And I had to hope that someday when life in Korea is not referred to as a tinderbox my students will look back and say, “Remember how ridiculous that was.”

Here's that 1950's duck and cover video I was talking about...