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Oct. 6, 2004
Hey now merry doll, merry doll a dillo!
What's shakin' everybody? I've got a little bit o' time to kill here in between classes for a change,
so I thought I'd drop a quick line or two to see what's up witch'all! It's a foggy morning here in Korea and it's tempting
not to just go over to the PC bang and lose a couple hours bashing away at a korean version of Diablo II. They're mad
for video games here. They have 2 damn channels on TV just devoted to watching Warcraft III and Starcraft games where
the pimp-mack-daddy top online players hash it out live for your viewing pleasure. It's truely bizarre, but anyway...
This past weekend I had my first Korean soju experience. Soju is this Korean liquor made from rice
that is about 12% alcohol by volume and tastes like cheap american vodka you buy for $8 a half gallon and comes in this monstrous
easy to grip plastic container. You know what I'm talking about. Not Gilby's or Gordons. No. We're
talking the Crystal Palace and the Bankers Club baby! And you drink it straight up. You're supposed to sip it
actually. But us westerners prefer to just down it as a shot and have done! Actually, it's not that bad. But the
hangover is. I don't care what my Korean students say... So this past weekend my language center treated all it's employees
to a bit of dinner and a drink. It was really good actually. We went to this Korean restaurant where everyone
is seated at a small round table (4 to a table max, though we drug a few tables together) that has this circular gas burner
lined with stainless steel embedded in its center. In this well is a removable stainless steel plate that has slits
every two or three inches radiating from the center. Then meat is served. Raw. They have these small, thin
cut slices of pork that look deceptively like bacon, but is definately not. There is also beef, half inch thick and maybe
2 inches long and well marbalized. So, at your leisure you chuck this meet onto the plate in the center and tend
it as a group. Meanwhile, servers bring you 3 different kinds of kimchee, thinly sliced fresh garlic, 2 kinds of chilies,
some various sauces and a plate filled half with lettuce and half with what I'm told are sesame leaves that have a kind of
mint-like flavor to them. And now the soju starts to flow admist shouts of "one shot! one shot!" from us westerners
trying to use peer pressure to get the Korean staff to drink up. Once the pork is nearly done, you pick up the slices
up with a pair of tongs and cut them into little pieces using crazy sharp scissors letting the meat fall back down onto the
plate with a hiss. As the meat's done to your liking, you pick it up with chop sticks, drop it into your sauce of choice and
then pluck it out onto one of the leaves and yummy yum yum down into your tum tum! And all the while the soju flows and you
toss new meat down onto the fire. And the soju flows. "One shot, one shot"! All the while the rest of the restaurant stares
and wonders "who let these crazy drunken foreigners in?" And the soju flowed washing me right out the door into a taxi and
home before midnight on a Saturday night if you can believe it.
Combei!
Paul
Jan 2, 2005
Happy New Year!
Hope this finds you all happy and healthy! It's been awhile. I admit I've been a little bit lax on
the email scene these days but c'est la vie they say. Had a bit of a crazy New Year here in Seoul. We went downtown
near Jongakk, in downtown for the celebration at midnight. I imagine it must be a little bit like NYC on new years, there's
an obscene amount of people. Anyway, we started the night with some quiet after work drinks and a bit of a bite to eat
at a little place across the street from my school called "Beer Hunter". That's right folks, Beer Hunter, big ol' yellow
sign with a frothy frosted mug in English. Then as the hour approached we hopped the subway 1 stop down to join the madness.
Of course I had to take a piss so I pulled aside from our group to use the subway facilities. When I came out, only one person
from our group was left waiting for me, the rest having been swept away by the pull of the crowd. Anyway, she and I
went to the nearest exit and came out into a rolling sea of people totally separated from our group and nowhere to go but
forward with the press and crush of human bodies. So we flowed forward, literally carried by the current, inching our way
towards the little temple like pavilion where the bell was to be rung 33 times at the stroke of midnight. Why 33? Someone
explained it to me but it's a little fuzzy, something to do with commemorating 33 key soldiers in some battle or other, but
anyway. Finally we were swept into a little "eddy" in the stream, pressed up against a Korean-American from Chicago and some
of her Korean friends. We were able to stay there for a little bit and were rewarded with heavily accented cries of "Happy
New Year!" from our new neighbors. Keeping with the spirit I good naturedly handed my water bottle (filled with a nice
French Cabernet Sauvingion) to the guy next to me. He takes a tentative pull, likes it, then takes a longer one and
promptly turns around to puke on the shop front window behind him. The people in the window instinctively take a step
back, horrified. I looked at Jen. "Time to go" and laughing we stepped back into the crowd to be carried further towards
the malestrom. Meanwhile, Jen's trying to contact her boyfriend and the rest of our group on the cell phone but to no
avail. Even if we could have found out where they were, we couldn't have gone in any other direction than the mob was
taking us. So, finally we reach a point where the crowd just stops moving, and there begins this sound. Bwong......a tolling
like judgement day itself come at last. Bwong.....unimaginable horrors in a Wes Craven movie about to come down around
your head. Bwong.....The spiritual bounderies shiver, lessening the divide between this plane and the next.
Bwong....a funeral procession, a process of healing to begin. Bwong......
All the while crazy Koreans squashed next to me and in fact thousands of them in every direction start lighting
off roman candles, holding them barely arms length above (and no more than inches from the next person's) head. It's
quite a sight. Cheering, smoke filled air aglow with the colors of ten thousand roman candles, the smell of sulfur burning,
Bwong... the bell tolling and a bottle of wine. Little bits and remenents of fireworks raining down on your head and you just
push aside the thought that the potential for disaster is amazing as you silently hope a stray flaming green or blue
ball doesn't catch you in the back of your head. Push it all aside and stand with mouth agape in wonder. Bwong.....
The tolling stops. The crowd roars. Live music on the stage takes off. Some scantily clad
hoochie mamma shakin her stuff, showin a lot of skin despite the negative temperatures. Then come the riot police. Forcing
a wedge through the crowd and suddenly there's space and a sudden realization of the cold. The phone rings. A connection made.
We wander off to reunite with friends wide eyed and rednosed from the cold.
Well, gotta go, gotta Spanish class awaitin.
Hope this finds you all well!
Cheers,
Paul
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