[fishead soup]

In my experience the best topics for discussion are ones related to marraige and relationships.On the other hand anything that relates to the so called dark side of Korean culture are not always a good idea for discussion. What's your opinion on this subject?

[Eric]

I've had the best luck with relationship discussions. "Hot Topics" and current issues are hit and miss. Controversial things seem to generate the most silence for me. I think that people don't want to state their opinions on sensitive topics in a room full of people whom they don't know very well.

On a side note, I got tired of searching the internet and newspapers for "great" topics. So in an adult class I had I assigned homework to one person each class. Their homework was to prepare a question for the class to discuss in the following class. This worked REALLY well! For one, they were bringing in questions/topics that were interesting to them. Secondly, a few students used it as an opportunity to indirectly get advice on something, like their child's education or places to go during vacation.

eric