Korea vs Ghana

Well, it is the end of the line for the South Korean soccer team. I will not pretend that watching the World Cup in Cheongju has opened my eyes and converted me to the thralldom of soccer but it has provided me with loads of fun.


A Korean asked me atop the roof deck of MJ’s, an expat bar located in downtown, during the Brazil vs. Portugal game why Americans were so drawn to football while the rest of the world goes glossy eyed over the checkered ball and athletes that pay as much attention to acting as they do the game.

I mustered some terribly lame and fairly pretentious answer about it being a spectacle of controlled violence with enough testosterone to keep us warm against the falling winter.

Later on, as we were leaving MJ’s a girl from Philadelphia summed it up much more accurately.

“It’s the social atmosphere.”

That is what I will miss the most with the elimination of South Korea.

Hours before the game, I met up with a handful of fellow expats at one of the hundreds of barbeque restaurants of Cheongju. If you asked me the name of the place I wouldn’t be able to tell you. It is no exaggeration to say that nearly every street in Cheongju has at least one, if not many barbeque restaurants and they look just about the same: a dozen or so tables with holes cut into the center and a few dozen plastic chairs strewn about. There are times when the Cheongju night is ripe with the smell of burning meat.

It is, thus far, my favorite food here in Korea.

Barbeque in Korea is different than barbeque in the States. For one thing I have not seen a steak since I have been here and while I have seen hamburgers (or very horrible takes on what we would call a burger “I didn‘t know hamburgers were orange?”) they do not appear at Korean barbeque. Instead you are given a plate full of chopped raw meat, a million sides and a fire in the middle of the table.

The meat that you cook (by yourself though the waiter will usually come and replace the grate after you have succeeded in charring the meat and sending up amateur plumes of white smoke) is not limited to traditional cuts that are familiar to westerners. I’ve had thick slabs of lean and fat that resemble a giant’s bacon (pretty good), volcano hot chicken (amazing if you don’t mind sweating profusely), chicken anus (not so good) and pig organs (surprisingly delicious).

On this day we had pork. It is now one of my favorites.

The day had threatened and delivered rain off and on. A couple of times during the meal workers would rush to pull a canopy over the outdoor patios, killing any sort of breeze on a humid night and bringing on the dreaded spicy-food-way-too-humid dinner sweats.

With time to kill we found our way to another common sight in Cheongju: Garten Bier. In an odd sort of way this place reminds me of home. My girlfriend, while a full blooded American, was born and partially raised in Germany before moving to California, Texas, and finally Massachusetts. She has a passion for schnitzel and sausage.

While they do serve Koreanized sausages there does not appear to be any schnitzel at Garten Bier. In any case we got neither, instead we ate the traditional Korean soccer food of fried chicken and beer. The neat thing about this place is that each place at the table has a sunken cup holder that is kept chilled so that the hookah-like shaped glasses of beer are consistently frosty.

The original plan was to watch the game at Chunbuk Stadium. The place has been ground central for Korea’s World Cup fight. Chunbuk Stadium is located a whopping 3 minutes from my apartment and is less a stadium than it is a bunch of concrete bleachers surrounding a multi purpose field, where a screen has been erected on which to watch the games.

Earlier in the day I had scoped the place out to stave off boredom. At 3pm kids were carrying banners across the field, souvenir carts were already stocked and van upon van was unloading its goods (a massive amount of booze) onto the side of the road. It was looking like a good night.

The weather conspired against us, though and we didn’t end up at the stadium. Instead we ended up again on the roof of MJ’s with the place to ourselves with the exception of a few older Koreans who sat on a sofa beneath a canopy.

By the time we sat down Ghana had already scored. Most of the predictions floating around had Ghana taking the victory and Korea being eliminated. Of course, this is what happened but the game was not without its excitement. With each attempt on either net there were screams of hope and despair with at least a few people (and all of the Koreans) jumping from their water-logged seats.

At some point Korea scored but I didn’t see it. I only heard maddened screams as I stepped into a rooftop bathroom that smelled like a port-a-potty in the hottest part of hell.

The tie didn’t last long though, and Ghana’s next goal proved to be the last of the night. While Ghana rejoiced the Koreans atop MJ’s (and likely all about the country) smashed their glasses of beer to pieces on the floor.

There is a sense of heartbreak every time your team loses. This is also true with an adoptive team in a sport you really care very little about. When the players stopped running and moped off of the field they took with them the patriotism that won’t be seen until the next time around.

I remember watching the Red Sox take on the Yankees in the post season of 2003. Framingham State College and all of New England was galvanized one moment and distraught the next as we all saw that ball sail out of the field. It was over. Now the World Cup is over and the vevuzelas are silenced in the Land of the Morning Calm.

The group broke up and I ended the night playing Jenga and eating Nachos in another expat joint called Pearl Jam. Korea might have lost to Ghana, but I owned at Jenga.



Things I ate today: Kimchi mandu (dumpling), omurice (omelette and fried rice), sundae (blood sausage) and ttekbokki (rice cakes in a spicy red sauce with fish cakes).

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On that First Night

What happened when I stepped off of the bus was a whirl wind. I was promptly rushed by three Korean girls shouting my name. Before I could say “hello” my luggage was taken from me and I was soon in a car driving into the Asian night.

There were questions. My god, were there questions. How old was I? Did I have a girlfriend? How long have we been together? Did I have a pet? How many? Did I have any brothers or sisters? What was her name and how old was she and what was her boyfriend‘s name? How old was I? And so on and so forth.

Apparently I am 27 in Korea. It is a bit daunting and I am not entirely sure how they come up with the number. I understand I am born at one year, but where the second year comes from I have yet to be able to understand. Either way I do not like it so much.

We drove through my town, Cheongju. I was told by Larry that it was a small town, but this apparently is only by Korean standards. The streets were jammed with cars and people. Every now and again a scooter would leave the road and cut through the sidewalk as though it were another lane. The night was black, but street level was a whir with florescent stores and neon signs. It was something out of Vegas.

Of my captors, two of them spoke English enough for me to communicate with ease. The one who sat next to me as I stared through the window was Han and the girl in the passenger seat was Boram. The driver, who smiled the entire time with this maniac grin as though she was enjoying my shock like no tomorrow, was the school director’s wife. I still do not know her name.

I was brought to a home goods store. It’s name I do not remember but it was something of an entire Walmart put into the space of a large CVS. There, regardless of any protest I was bought a bunch of stuff I was not expecting and probably would never use.

Here is the short list:
Towels
A dozen eggs
Some sort of instant soup
Two quarts of milk that looked like they came from a designer store

Mandarin oranges

Banannas
Shampoo made out of black beans -enough of which to last me the entire year
A toaster
Beef jerky
8 cans of Budweiser because apparently I exude alcoholism

My shower head.

Shortly after I was brought to my apartment. Through Han, the director’s wife told me that I would be here for only a few days as it was not very close to the school and she wanted me to have a nicer place. So, luggage in tow I stepped through the door to see what I was in for.

Upon walking in there was a tiny kitchen nook. It had a sink, cabinets and a gas range. Up a raised step and through sliding, foggy-glassed doors was the main living space.

Korean Lesson Number One: Do not, even in your own living area, walk in with shoes on. You might start another Korean War. Even before the soles of my shoes (actually they are the shoes of my old roommate Hadley that should have been tossed in the Best Buy dumpsters before we even drove to Florida) hit the floor I was pulled back as though I were about to step on a landmine.

So, in dirty socks I stepped into my temporary abode. Indulge your eyes in the fabulous photos.

My very masculine room.

Perhaps, it is nothing to write the folks about, but I have a certain soft spot for places that remind me of college dorms, and I quite like having my own little place to call my own so I was happy. Also, I find wearing pants to be a bother.

In my fantasy, this was where we all parted ways for the night. I would be left to unpack, calm my mind with one or all of the cans of beer and get to bed at a decent hour. I would wake the next day and confront the crippling homesickness that I knew was hiding behind fatigue and jet lag. That, however is not how it happened.


Again, I found myself in the car watching the neon night pass me by. We finally stopped at a wide open restaurant whose name I never knew. They asked if I was hungry, I replied that no, I was fine; but of course it didn’t matter one bit.


I was beginning to understand what Bilbo felt after his unexpected party; much planning and concern of things happening involving yourself with no say either way (errr, yes that was a reference to The Hobbit).


Barbecue is big in Korea, and barbecue restaurants are the place to be. Do not be fooled though, you do all of the cooking yourself. We sat at a round table, in the middle of which was a grate covering charcoal. Above the pit was a long hose that sucked the smoke and deposited it god knows where.


The waiter brought over the standard yet overwhelming collection of sides, as well as a plate of what looked to be three enormous slabs of bacon. The bacon was tossed onto the heat and soon the place was sizzling with the smell of fat man’s heaven.


We spoke for awhile. I told them that I had never been away from home for longer than a month, and that it was hard for me to leave but that it was important to travel because otherwise the far parts of this world seem irrelevant.


As we munched on the meat and the sides and I demonstrated my almost insulting chopstick abilities, I couldn’t help but feel a little fortunate that I had ended up with this lot. They seemed like genuinely warm and welcoming people. Even the director’s wife, who spoke no English whatsoever, seemed extremely concerned of my wellbeing and happiness. For the first time in my life, I put in the effort to be upfront, social and talkative without being awkward and quiet for two weeks before I said anything. It was 11pm and I felt fulfilled. I was ready to pack it in and call my first night a huge success.


Then the school director walked in.


Albert.


Albert is a slick dresser. He was wearing a shiny dark grey suit with some pretty hip hair. His age I would put at somewhere between 25 and 40 something, though I know he is closer to the latter. He sat down next to me and we talked for a while. I was as bubbly as I could manage after being up for the better part of 48 hours and flying as far away from home as I could possibly get, let alone having a business dinner on top of it all.


At some point Albert started ordering beer. Pouring duty fell on Boram. We had a round or two before the soju came into play. Soju, a vodka kind of drink, is drank like water here and Albert had it decided that I could not end my first night without at least a taste if the stuff.


Perhaps it was fatigue and perhaps it was the lack of real substance, but the drink hit me and it hit me quick. Before I knew it I was feeling the warmth of a fairly decent buzz. Soon, I began to ramble and talk as though we were all old chums. A round or two later and I was laughing and laughing as Albert smoked his leaf-thin cigarettes. Poor Boram, who had been pouring everybody’s drinks, laughed and told Albert something in Korean which amounted to the likes of: “Albert, look at this poor bastard. Here he is on his first night delirious and drunk off it all.”


“Thomas,” Albert said at 2am, “I am very happy with my first impression.” He then went on to confess to me that he liked to drink, and that we should drink often and that he was very generous.


And so, that is how I found myself at my little apartment, completely hammered on my first night in South Korea.

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