Volleyball, Bombs, and Sam-gyoep-sal

Date: 11/22

Another post from a while ago.

After school on November 22, I went to support my school's teacher's volleyball team in a regional inter-school conference/competition/match-up.  I love the idea that teachers can play competitive sports--it is something is not in America--or at least I never saw it.

Some teachers made signs and we jumped in a car and headed over to this huge arena where the games were being held.

I really like walking into the auditorium and seeing a a huge Republic of Korean flag.  It always reminds me that I'm not in the good-ole USA--which I know is a funny concept--How can I forget being in a foreign country, but every once and a while a huge flag does the trick and makes me laugh.  Anyway, my team is playing right in front.

 We are in lime yellow--pretty hard to miss us.

 We lost, really quickly.  I think we were only in one round.  But it was good fun.

Afterwards everyone meets at the net and shakes hands and bows.  Good game mentality.

 We get a quick group photo which is great.  For some reason, they stick me front and center.  Which is nice and all, but I was just a cheerleader.  I didn't even make the signs.  But, once again, celebrity-itous strikes and I'm dead center. Personally, I really love this photo.

 Afterwards we are all sort of walking around, not knowing what to do--or at least I feel that.  Then again...I most always feel that way so that may just be me. Something about not speaking the language does that to a girl.

We get back in the car and head out for teacher dinner.  I love being a teacher in Korea, they always seem to feed me.  :)

We walk into the restaurant and turn around and there's a TV on wall.  Surprisingly, they are flipping through a bunch of pictures with an island that looks like it's been attacked.  About 5 of the 20 teachers stop and watch.

 It takes me about 30 seconds to realize that "Hey, is that South Korea?"  I look to Sung Sik and ask him, "Where?" His response, "Island...by Seoul."

It hits me pretty hard--South Korea's been attacked.  By North Korea.  Holy crap!  (okay, much stronger language ran through my head...)  But I look around at all my teachers--they are watching TV but it doesn't seem to really be freaking them out.

 Then they tell me that it happened at 2.00 that afternoon.  It was currently around 5 pm.  I'd gone (and most of my co-teachers) had gone a whole 3 hours without hearing about the attack.

My American-ness immediantly thinks back to 9/11--my one reference for having attacks on your country.  We knew something was up within an hour just by the way teachers were acting--we had classes where they watched some of the footage, we had a public ban on tv that day in about 45 minutes, the whole school had this eerie, disturbed quiet settle over it within 2 hours.  Like, we all knew something was going on...And something huge.

Not so much the case over here.  Not even close.

Since South Korea is still technically at war with the North (They only signed a cease fire agreement, not a peace treaty), these sorts of things happen all the time.  There's shots fired across the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone--the area separating the North and South on the 38th Parallel) every day.  Back in March, North Korea (supposidely--they deny ownership--cough cough) sunk a South Korean ship and ended up killing 46 naval officers.

Koreans are used to "disturbances" (for lack of a better word) with their northern neighbor.  They live in a situation where this is not reason to pack up and leave town.

It was very surreal standing there with my co-teachers (and not my English co-teachers so the English level was good, but not quiet easy conversation level) and have them tell me it's okay.

"OK?" I repeat, "You people just got attacked!"

"No big.  Do not worry.  Come, let's eat!"

And they take my hand and pull me into the dinning room.  Sung Sik pats my knee once we sit down and tells me "Not to worry.  Nothing will happen."

I try to explain to him that Americans have a super fear of North Korea starting a war with the South and then it blowing up into the 3rd World War.  Sung Sik reassures me again, say, "Yes, we fear this too.  But do not worry.  All Ok."

*Just a quick note, in America, we view North and South Korea as two completely opposite countries.  They are entirely divided in our minds.  But, I've learned that this is not the case in the Koreans minds.  I mean, yes, they have two very different governments, but they are one people.  They (South Koreans) are all very sad and frustrated that the governements have kept their people/race/Korean family separate, and legitimately believe that they will be one country again in the future.  It is not a cut and dry issue here.

Anyway, so literally, I try and put the bombing thing out of my head.  If it was a real, dangerous, threatening, run-for-cover issue, surely the Koreans would be panicing, or at least seemingly worried.  But, as hopefully, you can tell by the next picture, they really don't seem to be too focused on the issue:

Let me serve you some "sam-gyeop-sal" says Wisdom

And this is how the rest of my night went.  They talked and chatted like their country hadn't been attacked.  I later learn that the island (which I can never remember because it's about 18 letters long) is in kinda stinky waters because it's closer to North Korean territory, but it's below the 38th parallel so it's Southern...or something like that.  It's just in a disputed area, and thus it gets a lot of evil-eye from the people upstates.

So, dinner continues on as normal.

 We eat sam-gyeop-sal for our main meal.  It's delicious.  I love sam-gyeop-sal.  It is pork belly that you cook on the grill inserted into the table.  Then you pick it up, put it in your lettus, add some fun stuff like peppers, onion, some red spicy (of course) sauce, garlic, and other things, wrap it up and shove it in your mouth.  I usually really have to stuff my face because I end up putting way too much stuff in my wrap.

Luck for me, the eating etiquette for Korea is a little different than the West.  Slurping is considered polite.  Small bites are looked down on, people say "you eat like a bird," pecking away.  Not good.  So basically, the bigger and more noisily you eat, the more you are saying you like your food and are complimenting the cook.

After dinner, we get some bibimbap to cook on the oven.

The other people at the table.  We played a few drinking games.  It is funny; there as many rules for drinking correctly as there are for trying to hide that you are not drinking.

For example, in the picture below you can see that there are two rows of tables that my schools teachers are sitting at.

One of the teachers, about 3/4 of the way through the meal, raises his glass to me and yells, "Meggie!  Gamba!" I raise my glass, and then realize that I don't have anything in my glass.  But I've already had enough to drink; maybe even a little too much.  (The country I've been living in for 4 weeks has been attacked by their psychotic neighbors, I needed a little something--no judging allowed!).  Anyway, so I look at Sung Sik, who I've already told I've had enough to drink.  He smiled, picks up an empty bottle of soju, and proceeds to "pour" me a drink.  I cup my hand around the glass and hide the fact that there's nothing being poured.  It works!  I raise my toast to the teacher at the other table, say "Gamba!" and drink some air.

I got a lot of compliments on that one.  "Oh! You're turning Korean!"  (Which is a compliment I strive for at all times with my colleagues because that makes them feel more comfortable around me.)

It's rice and thinly sliced veggies cooked on a hot surface.

 Usually you also add a raw egg and cook that with the rice.

 Bibimbap is also one of my favorite Korean dishes.  The rice gets all crispy when it is cooked and it is just yummy.  (If you can ignore the raw egg--which does get cooked.  But at first you have to get over the egg).

The guy next to me had a cold udon noodle soup.  It looked like this:

It wasn't too bad...just sesame seed-y.  It was good...a little weird being cold noodles.  But ehh...I had my bibimbap, was full on sam-gyeop-sal, and relaxed so it was good.

The meal is finished now.  Some of the men will continue to go drinking, but most everyone else walks home/catches a taxi.  I realize why my apartment always has random cars outside.  I have a couple bars located around me, and it took me until I myself was walking home to realize that many people simply just lock their cars and walk home--no matter the hour.  I got in a taxi with a friend and we head home.

That was my evening.  I personally think its pretty cool that I happen to have the moment I found out about the attack on film.  So props to me for always having my camera on me.