1st weekend out and new friends

I just had an absolutely fantastic weekend. After school on Friday night (yes, children in Korea do go to school on Friday evenings…more on that later) I went out with my friend Kelly who started at my school at the same time as me. We met up with her friend Anthony and some of his friends in central Daegu. Almost all of the people we met up with work at some branch of MoonKkang and everyone was from various parts of the English speaking world – the U.K., scattered regions of Canada and the U.S., etc. We went to a few different bars/nightclubs and it felt bizarre how much I didn’t feel like I was in Korea. Most of the places we went were inhabited by a 10:1 Caucasian/Korean ratio, played American music, and sold some American beverages (I was quite delighted to have a vodka cran at one of the places we went). Quite clearly, there are a good number of ex-pat bars in Korea. Before long, it was 6 a.m. and we decided to have breakfast at an “orange shop” which is sort of like an inexpensive, small Korean diner. Bars essentially don’t close here. They close whenever people feel like going home. This may seem problematic, and I suppose in some ways it may be. However, in defense of Korean bars, I must mention one notable difference between them and bars back home: they do not endorse binge drinking. If you really wanted to binge drink in a Korean bar, you certainly could, but it is not necessary. Back home, everyone drinks as much as humanly possible in three or four hours in a race against the clock. When 1:00 rolls around, people drink twice as fast and start ordering shots. Everyone is constantly checking the clock to see how much time they have left to pour alcohol down their throats. But since the factor of a closing time is eliminated in Korea, people are encouraged to drink at a natural pace. You still get intoxicated, of course, but it’s a progressive, social, happy drunk. Much more pleasant.

And now that I’ve proudly made a distinction between different variations of drunkenness, I’m going to tell you about the even more pleasant sober day I had yesterday. You know you’re in good company when you enjoy the people you’re with even more when you’re sober than when you’re drunk. Kelly and I went into downtown Daegu at about 2:00 and did some exploring. I don’t know what exactly I was expecting to see when I came to Korea. I was, of course, fully expecting to see some golden arches in the shape of an M, one of the most obvious symbols of modern Western civilization. I was expecting to see a few random American chains that would give me an inner chuckle as I walked down the street and cheerfully said to myself, “Who would have thought that the first Dunkin’ Donuts I would ever enter would be in South Korea?!?” I was expecting that I would have to go out of my way to tucked away corners of the city to find some hidden gems that would provide me with a refreshing taste of home. As is usually the case, all of my preconceived notions about Korea have proven to be entirely false. Frankly, Korean shopping and eating appears at first glance to be more Americanized than America, or at least more Americanized than the America that I know. Coming from a small town in a small state, it seems bizarre to me that there are certain American franchises that I can go to in South Korea that I cannot go to in South Dakota. I haven’t yet decided whether I think this is a great thing or a terrible thing; right now, I just find it amusing.

In the midst of our exploration, Kelly and I spotted a coffee shop that had swings in the windows for customers to put themselves on display like exotic fish in an aquarium for all the walkers outside to gawk at. Never wanting to miss an opportunity to be gawked at, we decided to escape from the cold and leisurely sip a latte and have a chat on the swings. Two hours later, we finally left and met up with more or less the same gang that we were with the night before. We had some dinner at a pizza place, and it was decent although I generally disagree with the Korean belief that corn kernels make an appetizing pizza topping. We then had some more coffee and did some more wandering before going to see the movie Avatar in 3D. I had never been to a movie in 3D before, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that even my defective Deacon eyes were able to appreciate the awesomeness of watching a film on a really big screen in three dimensions. The only somewhat unusual difference that I detected between Korean/American movie theaters is that the seats are assigned and there were a few interesting snack choices…I still don’t feel like I’m in South Korea, or at least the place that my imagination envisioned South Korea would be. Evidently that place only existed in my imagination. I basically feel like I’m living in a commune at a random location in Asia that was set up by a bunch of like-minded white people…and you know what? I like this alternative society.