Thursday, October 14, 2010

In the Shit, Part 2: Electric Boogaloo

In school the interactions with my fellow teachers, Vice Principals, Principal and others goes as far as a simple bow, and a friendly “annyong haseo” here and there. And that is about it, nothing more, nothing less. I’m lucky if some of them even show up with their class when they come to my room.

Where the relationship I have with my co-workers and student’s parents can really be summed up is in the stories that accompany my experiences eating dinner with them.
Korean culture is one of community; one of sharing everything with the masses, and one that has zero grasp of the (Western ideal…I guess) of the importance of the individual. Also notably, the idea of excess.

That said everything is a gathering, a big production. Gone are my days of being able to sit at a bar by myself and have a few beers. Eat dinner, and have a peaceful evening out and about.

Dinner 1 – Dinner one was by far the tamest. Actually nothing was really out of the ordinary about it. But it was my first experience with Korean dining.

My co-teacher Mi-Jeong, John (a fellow English teacher at one of my school. He hails from Brooklyn)and I went to a sashimi restaurant, aka heaping plates of raw fish. Not my favorite but, I dug right in, octopus tentacles, eel skin and all. As things have progressed I’ve actually come to love this dinner choice, and have gotten really comfortable with eating just about anything. This was also my first experience with the wonderful tradition of floor dining. Which I’m not used to as is, and was made even worse by the fact that at this point in time I was nursing a horribly sprained ankle. Needless to say I was squirming, and fun was being poked at me the whole time. Overall though good dinner, and it was a great introduction to Korean dining.

Dinner 2- Dinner 2 is where things started to get interesting. The entire staff of Hanmaunm Elementary (about 30 of us) packed into a big room at a Korean BBQ joint. Korean BBQ has become by far my absolute favorite thing to eat here. It comes in all shapes and sizes, but to sum it up, it’s a bunch of meat, that you cook for your self on a plate on the table, that’s about it. And its scrumptious.

Luckily dinner this time was right next door to my apartment. As soon as we sit, the Soju glasses are turned over, and it is all-downhill from there. It is pretty much standard that if you glass if ever empty, it will be immediately filled. Considering this was a Friday and my first rambunctious dinner with my fellow workers, I kind of just let loose and had a blast.
Eating dinner with a big group of Koreans can be a pretty awesome experience. They love making speeches, which I think is hilarious and awesome. The more and more the booze is flowing, the more frequent the speeches become. Back home we would call someone that drink as much as they do a lush, but for them it’s just part of their culture. They are the happiest god damn drunks in the world and can be a good time.

They are a very shy people, and when they start drinking, like many other cultures. They really start to loosen up. The Vice Principal was feverishly talking to the English speaking teacher and wanting her to translate everything to me. He kept grabbing my arm, raising it in the air and proclaiming “TAYLOR TEACHER, GOOD TEACHER.” I accepted all his random praise and all of his drink offerings and poured some for him and the principal as well. Overall I walked away from this dinner making a very good impression, and having a really good time. The Vice Principal even invited me to Chuseok dinner (Thanksgiving) with his family! When Chuseok rolled around, guess what? He forgot about that invite! Cause he was too drunk to remember! Surprise surprise.

Dinner 3: Dinner 3 was one of the more completely spontaneous ones, a habit of theirs. 4 p.m. rolls around, you definitely have plans for after work, not to mention it’s a school night, and then the question gets dropped on you “WE GO TO WAYSHEK!?!?” This is of course what they call these dinners.

I kind of reluctantly agree, because disagreement here = disrespect. It’ sashimi again. Dinner goes much like dinner 2, less folks came to this one, but of course the VP showed up and was in rare form. Pouring drinks left and right, and repeatedly saying “TAYLOR TEACHER, GOOD TEACHER.” He is a nice man, and I really wish I could carry on an actual conversation with him, as well as a handful of my other teachers. They are all so eager to chat you up, they are generally an incredibly friendly people. Here I feel much like I did when I was in Ireland, the only difference being that in Ireland I could actually communicate back when people were kind to me. So it gets a bit frustrating not being able to reciprocate.

Dinner ends and we get a ride home with the Grade 2 teacher, she is bumping righteous jams in her SUV on the ride home. We drop the Vice Principal off, but before he leaves he mutters something in Korean in my direction. The two teachers in the front seat giggle, and take off. I ask what he said, and they say he just gave me a Korean nickname. What is it, I asked, to which they replied, “He called you bottomless bucket.” I really don’t know how to take that at first, but it was explained to me later that all it means is that he is very impressed with how much I can eat and drink. I guess that’s a good thing. This was with the folks at Hanmaumn again by the way.

Dinner 4: Dinner 4 was my first experience with the folks from Seongup Elementary. And boy, are they NOT shy.

Seongup is generally a lot more rambunctious of a school. The kids are crazier (but have a lot better personality i.m.o), and the staff has just been really welcoming to me from day one. They have a female principal too, which here means, uber progressive school.

Dinner this time was sort of to be expected. Sports Day had just occurred, and it’s kind of big deal here. Classes get cancelled for a week for the most part in preparation for this day. Needless to say, the teachers put a lot of work into this and they were very excited to celebrate the fact that it was finally all over.

I rode with the Grade 5 teacher and the Vice Principal back to the city. About 10 mins into the ride the VP, who knows very little English, manages to bust out the question “How many bottles of Soju can you drink?” I really don’t know how to answer this question. I say modestly say “uhhhh two,” to which he replies “that is good amount for man your age.” This sets the tone for the evening.

We get to dinner in Tapdong, which is on the Jeju-si waterfront area. Guess what’s for dinner? Sashimi once more. I sit down at one of the two tables our group occupies; unbeknownst to me I had sat at the “drinking table.” I genuinely had a lot of fun with this group at dinner, they even let me make my very own first Korean dinner speech. A speech whose applause and cheers was delayed until after the only English speaking teacher has translated it all. I chatted up the PE teacher, as much as I could about fishing. But we came to a vague agreement that he would take me that weekend.

Dinner is never the end of the night here. The party, the after party, the hotel lobby, they fully believe in ALL OF IT. I get whisked away to a nori bong with my entire school staff. We sit down at a big ole table, and the beer keeps on coming. The PE teacher is the first to bust into song, some Korean jam. The whole staff is (well drunk) and busting a move. I promptly get pushed up on the stage and am told to sing. For any of you that know me, this is not an issue. When I have been drinking I practically beg for a microphone. So my first pic of this evening is Van Morrisons –Brown Eyed Girl. A song they seem to really enjoy. After the applause, and the “Taylor teacher, very good singer” comments, the grade 2 teachers approaches me swaggering and yelling “TAYLOR TEACHER, ME YOUR BROWN EYED GIRL!?!?!?!?!” After this night, I vowed to never sing that song in front of my Korean co-workers again, turns out they all have brown eyes, and are mostly women.

After my rendition and a few more songs I sit down next to the Vice Principal and he promptly directs me to the fruit basket and nuts that are on the table (they LOVE fruit baskets.) I go to eat a nut and he gives me the “anyo” look. He grabs in out of my hand and shoves it right in my face. It takes me a moment to figure out what the hell is going on here. Turns out he’s trying to force feed me peanuts. I kind of take it and awkwardly laugh. And then he does it once more. Once again, saying “no” here is a sign of disrespect, so when awkward shit like this happens, you are kind of just have to roll with it. Then he motions for me to feed peanuts to him, I hesitate and he grabs my hand and shoves it towards his mouth.

Don’t worry, this escalates.

As if eating the peanuts was our vows, he then proceeds to the reception, and gives me a lovers toast. You know, where you pretzel up your arms and then take your drink. This happens several times. And then to consummate it all he puts his hand on my leg and proceeds to hold my hand for a while and swing back and forth and sing a bit. I was kind of just staring off into space at this point, thinking happier thoughts and wondering when this encounter would end. I escaped, by volunteering to go up and sing “Yesterday” with some of the teachers, probably some of the only English that they know.

I want to take this opportunity to thank the Beatles for taking over the world with their melodies and their quirky English sensibilities some 50 years ago. John, Paul, George and Ringo I salute you.

We soon left the noribong, and most of the staff was going to continue on to more boozing. I luckily was able to escape. Not because I wasn’t having a lot of fun, bust mostly because it was a Thursday night, and I really don’t feel like teaching their screaming students hung over in the morning. Oh yeah, and there was the whole leg touching.

Next day, the VP, PE teacher and Grade 4 teacher didn’t show up for school.

This is getting long winded so I’m going to cut it of here, and save the last dinner for an entry of its own. While these are all fun, the last one was kind of a frustrating situation, so the tone is a bit different.

All in all, this is a very merry eating and drinking culture. They love celebrating together and having a really good time. They take their day jobs extraordinarily seriously and go absolutely crazy when they have the chance. It’s actually a pretty cool thing to be a part of. They pride themselves in what they do, and do it well. And they know how to give themselves a hefty, drunken, pat on the back.

2 comments:

  1. i felt a little awkward just reading about the hand-holding and lovers toast. hilarious.

    ReplyDelete
  2. How do you think it felt living it!

    ReplyDelete