College Boy Goes to Seoul

Almost exactly two years after graduating from college, I’m back. Not for a degree, mind you; all I’ll get this time is a “certificate of completion” if I pass my “Korean for Foreigners” class at Chungnam University (which is definitely not a given). But still, it’s fun to say that I’m back in college again. Mostly I got sick and tired of not being able to talk to hardly anyone, including most of the other teachers at my school, and decided it was time to take the plunge and really try to learn the language. I’m now logging about seven hours of Korean class a week, which is about as many class hours as I took in my final semester in real college anyways, so I think it’s fair to say that I’m a college boy once again.

Speaking of college, this past weekend Zach and I headed back to Seoul for a little college reunion. Our mutual friend Alex was visiting from the States, his grad school production of Antigone being part of a theatre festival in the capital. Alex knew a couple of other Macalester graduates in the area, as well, and naturally we all got together for a photo op for our alumni magazine:

If you don’t know what sort of gang sign that happy fellow in the middle is doing with his left hand, consider yourself lucky and move on with your life.

After spending some time standing around in the tiny “park” in Hongdae, watching what appeared to be a seance to raise the spirit of Michael Jackson on the anniversary of his death, as well as a jumping contest, we wandered to Gorilla Bar, where everyone kind of lost track of everyone else. But I wound up back at the hostel in any case, so it all worked out.

The next day was filled with napping while waiting for Brian, a friend from Daejeon, to make it Seoul. When he arrived we set off for Itaewon, which is in and of itself a rather uncomfortable place filled with a great many smirking Americans with their shorts hanging halfway down their asses. But they have an English bookstore and international grocery store there, and I wanted reading material and some curry fixins. Oh, and a Korea World Cup shirt. After three games, I still had not acquired my red shirt and therefore had been unable to BE THE REDS yet. But Korea’s first World Cup game in the second round EVER outside of Korea was to be played that night, and damned if I was gonna be the one douchebag in the whole audience without a red shirt.

I preferred to be one face in a sea of douchebags. Just kidding, they were all pretty cool.

So after dinner with my sister’s friend Shannon and her friends, Brian and I made a quick trip back to our hostel before meeting back up with them at City Hall. In the pouring rain.

Oh yeah, that’s right! After holding off all day, the rain managed to force me into wearing a garbage bag only after I had proudly put on my new red T-shirt (complete with ferocious-looking dragon face!). To make matters worse, the garbage bag was blue, one of the colors of Uruguay, who were the evening’s hated opponent/arch-nemesis. But it turned out okay, because the rain managed to stop after everyone was thoroughly soaked through. All 80,000 or so of us.

With this many screaming fans in red shirts, how can we possibly lose? Wait, what’s that you say?

This was a pretty wild experience. Imagine not being able to move hardly at all because people are packed in so tight. Imagine first trying to find three people in ponchos in this sea of people in ponchos, then imagine all of those people simultaneously sitting down on the ground. Yes, even though it was wet, at one point it was like a switch was flipped and everyone was hunkered down staring at the three giant screens showing the game. The cheerleader guy on the stage would occasionally break in with shouts of, “Dae! Han-min! Guk!” (Korean for “Republic of Korea”) or “Pilsaeng Korea!” (“Victory Korea!”) and everyone would scream with delight or fear or general dampness whenever someone touched the ball onscreen. It was like a stadium atmosphere, but without the stadium, seats, or actual physical game being played in the vicinity. But when Uruguay scored early in the first half, things got depressing for a little while. Which leads me to the more creative-minded part of this little post, for which I’ll try something different. This will be from the perspective of the aforementioned cheerleader guy, entitled:

***

DAEHAN-MINGUK GLORIA!

That many thousands of people can be silent, it’s true. As the ball bounced in front of the goal to the waiting foot of the offense, the roar became deafening. It became even more so as the ball sailed into the net, then, in the space of two seconds, it dulled to a low murmur. Maybe he had been offside? But the instant replay quickly dispelled that notion, and silence settled over the crowded masses at City Hall.

Sitting in the rain, drenched, packed together in the massive plaza like red-clad sardines in the world’s biggest tin, the fans were suddenly miserable. And they needed me. I raised the microphone.

“DAE! HAN-MIN! GUK!”

A few scattered, dispirited claps came to my ears in response, followed by a few half-assed shouts of, “Dae! Han-min! Guk!” I repeated my chant.

“DAE! HAN-MIN! GUK!”

My voice was already ragged only ten minutes into the first half, but I had to keep going. The fans were here from all over the country to cheer their team, and their team was down. So were they. A few more responses came back this time, but not many, so once again, with all the force I could put into it, with rain streaming down my face and perhaps a sense of desperation creeping its way into my voice, I screamed:

“DAE! HAN-MIN! GUK!”

This time a few more shouts were carried to my ears, and the front of the crowd picked up the cheer. “Dae! Han-min! Guk!” Clap, clap-clap, clap. “Dae! Han-min! Guk!” Clap, clap-clap, clap.

But it quickly faded out. This crowd had been completely sapped of energy by the events that had just unfolded on the three-story screen behind me. Considering the driving rain, the heat, and the close quarters, I should have expected nothing less. My throat burning, I took a gulp of water and waited.

Every once in awhile I would try again, and each time the reaction got a bit better. The rain was letting up, and our team had been putting together some good attacks. And finally, late in the first half, we scored.

The reaction was instant and explosive, and I was ready to do my job. Just as the noise was dying down, when people began to think about sitting down and watching the rest of the first half, I raised the microphone once again and belted, to the tune of “Ode to Joy”:

“Daehan-Minguk, Daehan-Minguk, Daehan-Minguk Gloria!”

My throat burning, my lungs crying for air, I kept singing, and the thousands of people packed into the plaza for the game joined in. I was winning again.

***

See, being in charge of leading the cheers for 80,000 screaming fans can be hard! For the record, Korea did lose the game 2-1 and were subsequently eliminated from the World Cup.

Anyways, moving on from Seoul and the World Cup, allow me to describe what the summer weather is like here in Korea. First, imagine soup. Hot soup. Then, imagine that soup is, in fact, your only source of oxygen. Now you’re getting close. Today, the high is expected to reach ninety degrees Fahrenheit. Oh, and it’s humid enough to be hazy. I can’t see the mountains less than two miles away from my school. This is pretty much every day: sweat is unavoidable, but you can’t really tell if you’re sweating or if it’s moisture in the air condensing on your skin. So be thankful for whatever weather you have. ‘Til next time, dear readers, if I don’t melt into a puddle of goo first.

Why I Could Never be a Monk and Other Concerns

I could never be a monk in Korea. No matter how much I wanted to, no matter how hard I studied, no matter how I scrabbled to attain enlightenment, I am simple not built to wake up at two in the morning to meditate. At Tongdosa Temple in the south of the country last weekend, we were awoken at three, an hour after the monks, for the morning ritual and meditation. Naturally, I had a hard time not dozing off,  much less concentrating on anything other than how tired I was.

The templestay trip had been planned for quite some time. I was excited about it, but I had no idea what to expect other than vegan meals and and a preposterously early wake-up call. Oh, and meditating. Lots of meditating. Anyways, I don’t want to do a full rundown of the whole weekend, because that would probably be boring. Instead, I’ll whip you up a little creative nonfiction, because I haven’t done that in awhile, in an attempt to give you a feeling for what it was really like to stay overnight in one of the largest Buddhist temples in South Korea.

If you’re seeing a sunrise three hours after you wake up, something has gone horribly wrong. That, or you’re a monk.

This little exercise will be called:

***

WHERE HAS ALL THE KARMA GONE?

As we stepped through the small gate and entered the hermitage, a black and white cat came scampering towards us, crying loudly. It looked as though its tail had lost a fight with a grain thresher: it stopped after only about two inches. The cat (who, for my purposes here, shall be named Stubby) ran straight up to me, threw himself against my leg, and started purring madly.

Mr. Kang, our guide (who never told us his first name, if he even had one), laughed and said, “You have good karma!”

As if to validate Mr. Kang’s claim, Stubby stood up and walked straight over to him, where he plopped down and began rolling happily in the dirt. “Actually he just only likes men,” Mr. Kang said.

Great, I thought, Way to get my karmic hopes up, Kang.

 Stubby <3 Mr. Kang.

Later, after gazing into a hole in a rock wall in search of a golden frog (I missed the boat on why he was living in there), I caught up with Mr. Kang at the bottom of some steps leading up to the hermitage, waiting for the rest of our group to catch up. He was holding several tiny white flowers in his hand.

“Eat,” he said, holding his hand out to me and smiling.

I hesitated. I felt that I couldn’t trust a man who made fun of my karma and then tried to hand me flowers he picked up off the ground to eat.

“They are, uh, per-, ah, pers – …”

“Persimmon?”

“Yes! Flowers of persimmon!” he said triumphantly.

“Okay…” I took one from his outstretched hand and popped it in my mouth. “Oof,” I said. “Bitter.”

“Bitter, yes. Very healthy!” Mr Kang emptied the rest of the flowers in his palm into his mouth and chewed them up happily. Watching him, it was clear that this was a guy who was exactly where he wanted to be, doing exactly what he wanted to do.

Mr. Kang had explained to our group the previous day how he had wound up being the English guide for the Tongdosa templestay program. After living the life of a Korean bachelor – namely working, smoking, and drinking with his co-workers – he decided he had had enough. He quit his job in hopes of finding a place to study and become a monk. Two days later, he met the head monk of Tongdosa, who had invited him to live at the temple and help with their templestay program. 

Talk about fate, I had thought to myself after his story. And talk about faith. Sometimes it pays off.

***

 

So the templestay was a very interesting experience. It’s hard to write

about, because what you get out of it depends entirely upon what you put in. I’ll just say that if you find yourself in Korea with a free weekend, a templestay program comes highly recommended from this middling blogger.

Anyways, some other stuff has happened since that madcap Busan adventure. Mostly, the English Drama Club had their competition on Wednesday and won second place overall, in all of Daejeon! My school went a little nuts; there is a perception that schools on the outskirts of Daejeon aren’t as good at English as schools in central Daejeon, so they were glad to stick it to ‘em. Now, though, every student in the school wants to be part of the club. Not because they want to act or like English necessarily, but because they really, really want to win something. Anything. Such is the Korean love of competition.

So, without further ado, I present to you our production of “One Midsummer Night”, the script for which you can find in a March post, if you feel so inclined. I promise that it’s thoroughly adorable and well worth fourteen or so minutes of your time. ‘Til next time, dear readers!