Pepero Day and Nori Bahngs

Yes thats right everyone yesterday (saturday) was pepero day here in South Korea. What's pepero day you ask? I know I did. Several times before I could actually figure it out. 'Chocolate Stick' day might be a literal translation for all I know. On friday I was surprised when all of my kids had long sticks of cookie dipped in chocolate (friday wasn't Pepero day, but I guess that some people just got into the holiday spirit early) in brightly coloured packaging that they trades, ate and gave me. I really don't think that there is anything else to the holiday, just the exchange of chocolate sticks. I was told that it was quite blatantly started by a candy manufacturer, which is so refreshing versus the subterfuge of north american corporations.


Well yesterday was also the English Speech contest at the school I teach at. Which basically became a Saturday that I opted to go into work. I honestly didn't have all that much interest in watching my students recite english fairytales, the day was mainly for thier parents. The parents by and large don't speak english, its just a bit of a publicity stunt to make them think thier tutition is being well spent. I originally had no intention of going. I was informed Friday as I was leaving work that the school would like to see me there, to which my mental reply was 'well not enough to pay me for it'. But then Friday night i started feeling sick again, my sore throat and headache came back, ahich coincided with a return of the smell from the bathroom. Which I have now isolated to the water heater. Hot dripping water. No chance of fungus there! So when saturday rolled around I was feeling like crap again (nothign a couple of sudafed didn't help) and thinking that maybe making a really good showing at the Speech contest might help my case for getting a better apartment. Technically I've already been told I'll get one, so it was also more of a 'I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine thing." Plus I wasn't really feeling up to anything else.


The speech contest itself was fine, some of my students did really well, some not so much. But I really didn't work on the speeches much with them- that was thier other teachers- so I decided to take pride in thier sucesses and defer thier failures to other hands. After the contest the entire staff went out to dinner at a swanky korean barbeque house. I tend to like the bbq restaurants here, basically some form of meat is grilled in the center of the table and there are tons of side dishes of salads, kimchee, garlic, yams etc. to pick and choose from. Everyone just shares everything, and it allows picky eaters like myself to eat a fair bit of meat and veggies and avoid the rice and sauces. It was also nice to spend a little time with my co-workers outside of work, aside from Nick and Patrick I really didn't know many of them that well. There was probably 16 of them there, all with varying degrees of english at thier disposal. Rocky, the Korean English teacher that talks like a surfer, was really friendly- explaining how much he loved oatmeal and maple syrup when he was in England. I knew maple syrup was hard to come by here but I never imagined what a novelty oatmeal was. One of the other teachers heard me saying that I don't have a phone yet and said she'd give me her old cellphone, which is super nice of her. Everyone loosened up real quick, the large amopunts of beer and soju the director bought for us probably helped that a bit. I just stuck with a little beer, the sudafed was making me feel fine but drinking was not goign to help me recover form my sore throat.

I also took the dinner as the chance to Give the director a gift from Cananda. In Korea it is customary to bring your new boss a gift, so I finally got around to giving her the bottle of Crown Royale Special Reserve that I picked up in the duty free shop on my way over. It went over well, most likely because its an expensive looking bottle and they were all surprised I knew the custom. I don;t think old Mrs. Kim is a big whiskey drinker but imported whiskey is popular here. I figure after all that brown nosing I'll check in on monday about how my new apartment is coming along. So after dinner a big chunk of the staff wanted to continue drinking, so we found a bar and I found out that a bunch of school teachers can toss back the soju and beer. Thankfully this bar was smoke free so I actually found myslef feeling fine. I'm convinced that the more time I spend outside my apartment the better it is for my throat. So after a few rounds there it was decided we would all hit a nori-bahng.


A nori bahng is basically a karaoke room. If you remember the scene from Lost in Translation this was very much similar. A small room with a video monitor and disco lights where these normally reserved Koreans belt out songs, shake tambourines and dance along to the music. Its different than karaoke nights at bars back home. there its usually done tongue and cheek, here they have fun but take it fairly seriously. Yes I joined in on a few western tunes and aside from Nick and I butchering 'Hey Yeah' (you figure if you've heard a song 5 million times you can follow along, but that was sadly not the case) I didn't make a bad showing. It was neat to see everyone just break out like that, and everyone got so conversational and the guys got touchy. Its not a gay thing here at all but people of the same sex will openly hold hands, walk arm in arm and hug. Patrick mentioned how his first week in Korea he thought there was a lot of lesbians in Korea. Ironically even the slightest physical contact between opposite sexes is looked down upon in public.

It wasn't that late that we finished up in the noori bahng but everyone seemed beat and went home, which I decided would be good for me too. I would really like to kick this cold by monday. So it was nice getting to know my coworkers better, although I know in Korea that although everyone was really friendly and relaxed last night it will be normal reserved behaviour on Monday.