It seems that each night I lay down to sleep and each morning I rise to the same sound: the vuvuzelas of South Africa. Invariably as I walk to the convenience store down the road for a triangle Kimbap I pass the restaurant with the TV hanging in the patio and there is somebody watching some team whose name he might not know play some other team from a country he has never heard of. On my way to the grocery store after school always there is a crowd at the bar next door and always that buzzing theme of the World Cup.
A long time ago I spent a little while in the mountains of northern Greece, a stones throw from the Albanian border. One night we sat in the reception building of our little village tired and dirty. The first part of the day, for me at least, had been spent digging holes into the heavy clay in the rain as it flirted with the idea of turning into slow. After a lunch of bean soup I had spent all afternoon with a lead pipe drawing back and thrusting it into the clay. Again and again I did this as two Greeks watched me sweat in the freezing air of the new winter. My arms jarred with each rock I hit beneath the grass and as the hours wore on my muscles burned just to carry the clay-caked thing onto the next spot. All to put in the flimsiest and worst piece of crap fence made out of sticks and thin nylon rope.
If you ever find yourself in the Forest Village of Kedros enjoy the scenery: I planted the trees and I put the holes in the ground for the fence. If the trees have washed away and the fence is no more, well, just don’t tell me.
On the night after my first tango with the lead pole I watched soccer with Greeks long after most of my fellow volunteers had left for out freezing hostel. Greeks love soccer. I no longer remember who was playing but those who lived at Kedros seemed to have something at stake. My friend Axilleas barely spoke English but he bridged the gap by buying me a beer from the bar at the far end of the room. I returned the favor and we sat on big leather chairs almost unable to move.
The fire next to the TV both lit and warmed the place into the waxing morning. I didn’t know what team was who but I watched the game until the end. Each goal bought on cheers or screams that threatened murder. Men fresh out of the military with heads still shaved and scarred at the hand of some butcher of a barber lit cigarettes straight from the tap of burning logs.
I never really knew who won that game. What I know is that I forced myself into the freezing and black night, the path barely illuminated by the moon’s light that bounced off of the wild mountains of the Tzourmeka range so that I might get a few hours of sleep before the morning came and with it brought utter agony to my body.
The next day was still a nightmare. Again I did battle with the pole and if I was miserable Axilleas looked like he might drop dead any minute. Hangovers tend to be magnified by hard labor with little food in the cold at high altitude. I remember asking him when he had finally returned to the hostel and he said it had been sometime near 4am after another game. I tried asking him why in the name of god he had stayed up so late given we were doomed to 6 more days of these 6am wake up calls.
He looked at me as though he didn’t understand the question. He did understand the question but he couldn’t fathom why I bothered to ask it in the first place.
“Thomas,” he said, “because it is football and because it is Greece.”
Jump two years or more into the future and there I sat in a taxi trying to cut through Cheongju traffic that was as thick as the haze that clung to the city. The weather had taken a turn towards oppressive- the temperature was in the 90’s and the humidity was monstrous enough to bring the haze to the ground. Indeed the air was suffocating.
Everywhere pedestrians, cars and madmen on scooters rushed to where they might watch the game. Friends of mine headed to the stadium which was jammed full enough to suspend disbelief that they were watching a broadcast and not the Korea vs. Argentina game in person. Cheongju’s streets flowed red with the homeland pride.
A 10 minute trip to Albert’s other school took over 30 minutes. We spent much of the ride in stand still traffic watching scooters and bikes risk narrow passages when they didn’t abandon the road all together and take to the sidewalks, pedestrians be damned. The cab was full. I sat in front while Han and Boram sat in the back. Albert, holding three giant boxes of fried chicken and three big bottles of Pepsi sat in the middle. He was as giddy as a very well dressed school girl.
Albert had canceled night classes. I was the last person to find out (about an hour before we left) and had insisted that everyone at his schools watch the game together.
“We are,” Albert always says, “a social family.”
As it was, the guys at the other school had apparently joined the countless red army marching to the stadium and I was the only guy there apart from my school director.
So, we sat at desks in a classroom that had been occupied an hour earlier by students anxious (or forced) to learn the English language. It now contained 5 Korean girls giggling in the back row, Albert hooking the antenna to the computer so that we could watch the game on the giant whiteboard, a clueless foreigner, and an absurd amount of fried chicken.
The moment the game began all classroom-appropriate behavior ceased to exist. Korean girls can scream very loud. Once the ball was in motion there was a constant chatter of shrieks, commentary and blood curdling cheering. Albert had dragged in a great leather armchair in which to sit right in front of the game. Whether we were there or not Albert could have cared less.
Argentina scored first to screams. Had we been quiet I am sure that all of Cheongju could be heard around us. We weren’t quiet though. Albert swore, the girls sounded like they had just been stabbed in the spine and I dropped my chicken.
Soon after the Older Receptionist and Albert’s wife showed up with a few more goodies.
Pepsi wasn’t enough to drink, I guess, because they came in with 30 beers and doled them out as the game played on.
So, there I was: watching Korea take on a powerhouse while eating fried chicken and drinking beer in school. Sometimes I have to laugh at where my life has taken me. Albert would occasionally stand up and without saying a word tap his beer can against my own in some silent toast and step over to the window and smoke a cigarette. If he were a high school kid in a bathroom he would have been suspended; but he isn’t: he is Albert. He does whatever he damn well pleases.
A short time later we watched as Korea danced around the Argentinean goal in the last seconds before the first half ended. There was a kick and-- the ball wasn’t even in the net yet when I saw Albert propel himself into the air, twist around, suck in air and let it out in an eardrum shattering scream/growl before his feet even hit the ground. While all of Korea erupted my attention had been taken from the game. I was wondering if Albert was going to eat me, or if he had chosen this moment to turn into some sort of hip Korean demon. I was wondering if maybe I had wet my pants.
The game went on and Korea lost. Later on, Albert’s wife was driving us back to our neighborhood. I sat in front as his wife laid on the horn while watching another soccer game on the navigational system / TV / really, really bad idea. Han was in back with Boram. Half sitting and half squatting was the Older Receptionist who had taken the unopened beers and was planning to drink her sorrow into a hangover. Albert sat with his face pressed against the window.
“Thomas,” said Albert, “I think that I am going to cry.”
Korea will likely not be a contender in the end, but for the time being Korea is galvanized. Each day I wake up and walk out my door to that omnipresent buzz. Koreans walk around as though they are stretched out a bit too thin, but there is a national pride involved that we in the States see only in the Olympics. In the States LA rioted because they beat the Celtics, Melissa Snelgrove was shot in the eye by a non-lethal projectile and soon died in the riots that broke out after a Red Sox victory.
But here there is nothing but unity and a bond. Amidst threats of war with the North, even my coworkers spoke with brotherly pride when North Korea denied a shut-out game to Brazil.
I don’t expect that I will ever see Axilleas again, but all of this excitement and pride has me imagining him working at whatever it is that he works at with one hell of a month-long hangover.
What I ate today: Kimchi mandu, rice, bean sprouts, plain old mandu, tortila chips, salsa (score!)
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