my students’ nervous english recitation lost in the din of their own parents’ chatter. Seriously, I was 10 feet away in front of the monitor and I couldn’t hear a goddamn word. All I could really do was sweat. A lot. but I was quite honestly appalled by the blatant lack of respect the audience had for these, their children, who despite all protestation, had actually worked their collective ass off. Which is not to say that the beginner play didn’t fall apart before my very eyes. It’s funny that when you’re rehearsing something and people fuck it up it’s really annoying and frustrating, but when it’s the actual performance and they fuck up, it magically becomes cute and endearing. That’s how the beginner play was for me. Captain hook and smee (two students whose real names I never managed to commit to memory over the course of three months) sort of panicked in front of everyone. There was a lot of me shouting from the wings while simultaneously trying to man the large cardboard crocodile I had masterfully crafted for the occasion. Organized chaos would be too generous a term. I was proud of my students, but ultimately I just felt pretty foolish for being so invested in this thing that obviously meant so little to everyone on the periphery. But hey, they’re finished. And hopefully that’s my last foray into esl via english drama. More about last week before delving into the usual weekend recap. On Thursday I had another tea date with my supervisors. While I was waiting for ms. moon to pick me up, I was approached by yet another jesus freak. And yes, in these parts, the moniker “freak” is more than warranted. Granted, religion in america can be pretty fucked up, but they don’t seem to be so damn pushy about it or overtly judgemental. This chick asked me about god and when I said I didn’t like going to church she shook her head and made a “tsk tsk” sort of noise. Fuck you, lady. Save that shit for your sewing circle. I guarantee that jesus didn’t make “tsk tsk” noises.
Anyhoo, was rescued by ms. Moon. Funny that I consider being whisked away by a middle-aged woman in a minivan who speaks absolutely no english a “rescue”, but that’s exactly what it was. And mr. Bak was only a half an hour late to dinner. And that silent 30 minutes wasn’t even particularly awkward, as we just decided to drink to fill the time. Mr. Bak showed up, we ate dakgalbi. I had a few moments of completely surreal sentimentality—reverie of many a drunken Saturday afternoon with jules and rory in chuncheon, eating dakgalbi and happily gazing upon the dancing soju bottles in myeongdong…
Ms. Moon had to leave to go pick up and deposit her child somewhere. Then me and mr. Bak were to meet her at the tea place. As soon as she left, mr. Bak said “I would like to drink some more alcohol.” So we drank 3 more bottles and I blabbed to him, my korean supervisor, about how racist koreans in suncheon can be. He didn’t disagree.
So dinner was about 1.5-2 hours. Little did I know, I had 3.5 more hours of happy fun korean triple date time left in me. And again, all the events that took place were some of the most relaxing and pleasant times I’ve had with koreans in suncheon, but the sheer length of these endeavors threatens to negate any pleasure I take in them.
The tea drinking locale was actually just a tea aficionado’s house. And indeed, he had lots of tea. But again, there was just the very calming ceremony of it all, the presenation of the tea an event to be taken very seriously. The couple had pictures of their children on the wall at various tea ceremony competitions. And I was pleased to be one of the few foreigners to ever set foot in their humble abode. The man talked about tea drinking as mediation and took lots of pictures of me. At the end of the evening (around 12:15 in the am), I was presented with a tea set, a bag of barley tea and a bamboo teaspoon. All for which I was incredibly grateful. None of which I deserved.
Then the plays the next day. Lots of roses for me, woo hoo! My waygook friends showed up. and I was more grateful for that than I even tried to express to them. I’ve been out of sorts for the past 3 months—feeling inexplicably fragile at times—so it was nice to have that very obvious show of support.
Post plays it was time to get drunk. I could try to rephrase this to thinly veil the main objective, but I won’t. I wanted to get hammered. I woke up on Friday and that was the first thought in my head: “tonight I get to get wasted/hammered/plowed/etc.” my weekend was spent either drunk, hungover or attempting to be both.
Ate some meat with fike and erica, then headed to the 711 in front of juliana’s. drinking ensued, as it typically does there (inside, but mostly outside). [near] fighting ensued, as it typically does there (inside, but also outside). There were probably about 15 people all milling about, drinking in front of the convenient mart. Some crazy korean chick was inside, alternately picking fights and trying to pick people up. she decided to try both with the resident iraqi black belt of suncheon. he was trying really hard not to react, but crazy lady ground her heel into his junk and started punching and slapping him. so he twisted her arm and she fell off the table she was sitting on, faceplanted on a chair, but then still recovered to get up and attack him some more. anyhoo, after the penis and heel incident and her making a fool of herself, she decided to pick up a chair and smash it against the window of the packed bar. and yet, the korean owner didn't immediately and violently remove her. she got to just stand there, curse for a while and look really angry and then be escorted out. All I could think was, “how much fucking alcohol do you have to drink to behave like this woman?” I get drunk. Sometimes I barf. But I never pick fights with people or attempt to throw chairs through windows. But maybe I’m the crazy one.
Drank until the wee hours of the morning. 
watched the sun rise on shidae apartments. Passed out around 5:45 am with visions of busan in my head. Woke up too early to catch the bus with fike and erica. Nothing too eventful happened in busan—we drank, we ate, we drank some more, ate some more. But it’s just nice to have a variety of cuisine, a variety of drink, a variety of people. that’s how busan’s been for me both times. indian food, thai food, whiskey, beach, live music, dude from princeton, treacherous cable car ride to the top of a mountain. Most of which I have pictures of (to be posted on flickr soon). All in all, a great weekend, despite the brain pain.
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