MinYoung never spoke in my class. He opened a notebook every week. While his 34 classmates rose their hands in participation or alternately spent the hour collapsed over their desks in exhaustion, MinYoung looked at me and took notes. He would not be held accountable for any of the English conversation he practiced in my class. The multiple choice, anxiety-ladden test that follows high school and determines university entrance and consequent life direction does not test Korean nor English spoken response. I was a foreigner he saw once a week. I was the only non-Korean at school.

It was not until the WorldCup sweep of national unity that MinYoung caught me after class with a question.

Across the country people watched the games together in community parks, movie theaters, and restaurants. According to the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in the U.S., a crowd of more than 300,000 fans gathered in front of Seoul's City Hall to cheer for the Korean soccer team as they defeated Togo in the German 2006 World Cup. The aerial photographs show seas of red bobbing under unfurled Korean flags and make the 300,000 figure seem like a sore undershot. Even at my boarding school, teachers agreed that TVs should be switched on for the 3am live broadcast of the match against Ghana, interrupting the 14 hour a day study regimen.

Red Devil t-shirts printed with enthusiastic English logos like "Reds Go Together!" or "Together Fighting for Our Dreams!" were sold on the streets. My seven-year-old host sister wore a pair of light-up Red Devil horns for three days straight and practiced the national clapping routine over breakfast. Cars honked the staccato tune for weeks.

This is when MinYoung addressed me for the first time, clutching a notebook to his chest. "Teacher, I heard many Americans do not know the National Anthem." His face was concerned and he spoke fast. "Is it true?"

As a Fulbright U.S. Student Fellow to the Republic of Korea and English Teaching Assistant, I spent the past year defining "American." How she spends her free time, what and how often he eats, how she raises her children, and exactly how much of the National Anthem he has memorized. Colleagues, friends and the occasional stranger on the bus enjoyed asking these questions that, if asked of Korean society, could usually be given all-encompassing and accurate answers. MinYoung and his peers across the country salute their flag, their nation, and their teachers at the start and finish of every class. I told him I thought many Americans would be hard pressed to recite "The Star-Spangled Banner." It was just a gut feeling I had.

This is who we are
There is a framed Korean flag on the wall of every classroom in the Republic of Korea. It is hung above the blackboard, directly behind the hulking podium from which teachers deliver their classes. When a teacher enters the room, the class captain stands to a mass clattering of chairs being pushed back and instructs his classmates to salute the flag and then the teacher. Yes, a flag can also be found in most American classrooms. However, in Korea, the flag is not only in every classroom, but in the same place in every classroom. This is the way it is done. Translated into English, something sounds off.

Weary of fielding questions along the lines of "What do Americans eat?" I launched a general vs. specific language lesson to combat the "we" mentality in translation. This involved a slideshow of general statements with accompanying photographs. A photo of kimchi, the national side dish of spicy pickled cabbage, titled "All Koreans Love Kimchi." I then asked the class if the statement was true or false knowing full well that Korean kids often feel the same way about kimchi that American children feel about brussel sprouts. Is this true or false? A resounding false. A photo of a toy poodle wearing a sweater titled "All dogs bark at strangers." False! A photo of a beaming George W. Bush and the words "All Americans agree with George Bush." Is this true or false? Maybe.

If this is who they are, then who are we?
MinYoung was right. Nearly two in three Americans do not know all of the words to "The Star-Spangled Banner." According to a 2005 Harris Interactive poll, of those who claim to know all the words, only 39 percent know what follows "whose broad stripes and bright stars." An additional ABC News Poll found as few as 15 percent of American youth can sing the words to the anthem from memory. That's a far cry from patriotic bursts of coordinated singing and clapping in the streets.

In March 2005, the US government launched The National Anthem Project with The National Association for Music Education to reinstate the importance of music education in America's schools. "The Star-Spangled Banner" with all of its "bombs bursting in air" is the project's theme song. In 2005, "staying the course" was still in Bush's bank of acceptable phraseology.

"Nuestro Himno" -- "Our Anthem," the Spanish version of the anthem recorded earlier this year by Latin pop stars, glosses over references to bombs and rockets as "fierce combat." MinYoung, that, right there, is America. It's the closest I can get at explanation. We may not know all the words to the anthem, but we know when it's done wrong. Sometimes we dress it up different and call it better.

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