A few weeks back I came to dinner around midnight with some coworkers at a Korean barbecue joint. There were about 10 guys, most of whom left once I arrived, and they kept leaving until it was finally me, two coworkers and a coworker's Korean girlfriend. We're drinking beer and hitting the soju pretty hard, and a waitress comes up to our table and says that a man at another table is asking if we're English teachers. I can understand how one might be confused, what with our long hair and ironic t-shirts over scrawny chests, so we told her to tell Mr. Anonymous that we were, indeed, teachers.
Well, she comes back a few minutes later, asking if it would be okay if Mysterious Korean comes and talks to us. Now I'm public school-educated, so I've never been informed how to handle a situation like this in all my years in grade school. We say it's okay if he comes over, because, I dunno, it's Asia, and maybe his honor's at stake or some shit. Exit one coworker, as he feigns a smoke break and makes a run for it, and Enter: staggering drunk middle-aged Korean man who asks us our names, and then the question every drunk Korean asks, which is what we think about Korean people. We reply with the same ambiguous, confused answers which are expected (that Koreans are nice and hard-working and great except for North Koreans who are Satan's whores). Turns out that's about all the English he knows, so he instead starts speaking Korean with my coworker's girlfriend, who translates for us that apparently he was an English major in college, and now he feels bad because he doesn't remember anything.
This is probably existential and shit, but I didn't have a lot of time to ponder it over because the next thing she translates for us is him saying we have beautiful skin. He actually tells us about three times, because he keeps drunkenly forgetting he told us the first time. Ordinarily I'd be creeped out, but I've been trying to Do As The Romans do, and Koreans are pretty fucking vain so I allow the compliment(s). Now, this whole time there had been a Korean couple at a nearby table watching the situation, and things take a stranger turn when the man from that table gets up and ALSO comes over to our table to try his luck at speaking English. I imagine it was an effort to impress his girlfriend, but she wasn't having it at all and just sat there looking pissed, while her boyfriend also failed to remember any English beyond simple greetings. The original Drunk Korean gave us some business cards for the travel agency he apparently owned, and told us about his 11-year old kid, whom is so lucky to have a father who is out piss-drunk at 2am on a Friday night talking to foreign strangers. But if you think that, then you are a racist, because Korea is a different culture and you have to respect their fucking insane drinking habits.
Anyways, around 3am we've had enough of this clusterfuck and after paying for our dinner (despite Korean Guy's insistence on paying, until he realizes we were paying a check for almost a dozen people and not 3) he follows us out of the restaurant to our cab, tries to give us his business card again, and we finally escape.
Other news:
-Apparently, an ex-coworker whose contract had ended got arrested. The police had busted a pot dealer, and found his number in the dealer's phone, and grabbed him before he got to the airport (on his way to Amsterdam, no less). Now he's probably going to be in prison forever and ever, because Korea treats marijuana the same as heroin. If only he had gotten high the good, Korean way: get falling-over drunk by 8pm, yell at random women and foreigners in the street, and pick fights with anyone who tries to calm you down.
-I've been to 3 birthday parties in as many weeks, so here are some fun pictures and events from them:
I smoked my first cigar: this Cuban a coworker brought back for me from Seoul. Here is a gif of me smoking it:
Each birthday party started out at Billi Bow, a kind of sports bar that specializes in darts and their own game (Billi Bow) which is basically a miniature bowling lane that you play using a pool stick and cue ball. Every Saturday, and on birthdays, our favorite bartender Conan does a juggling/fire show. This is he:
I turned my camera on fireworks mode to get some pics of the fire show. They're kind of neat:
After the fireworks show, he makes a pyramid of glasses and one of the bartenders blows fire at a shot on the top, lighting it. AWESOME FIRE:
The flaming shot, given to the lucky birthday boy or girl:
ALSO I did some more Flaming Dr. Peppers, like so:
It's a rough bomb, so it's a good thing I had my pencil moustache (with stubble already growing behind it) to give me strength.
RIP Awful Facial Hair
March 2010-April 2010
March 2010-April 2010
HANDLEBAR MUSTACHE
ReplyDeleteBRAID YER PUBES
ReplyDelete