Crazy Work Parties

What happens when a movie is a box office smash hit? You follow it up with a sequel. That is exactly what happen with Olympiad.* The first party was a celebration of the foreign work force finally arriving. While we were patiently waiting to arrive in Korea for over a month, Olympiad was waiting on us as well. The domestic staff had to take on more responsibility in our absence. They were teaching our classes! Needless to say they were excited for our arrival. I won't kid myself either, they were more excited to work less.

*Olympiad is the company I work for. They are a private education institution specializing in mathematics (very good at science too). They hope to leverage their solid reputation in math, and apply it to English. I am in a brand new building. The first seven floors are Olympiads, not exactly a lightweight. The building is great, but the rooms are claustrophobic. You could not fit more than twenty kids per room, and that would be pushing it. 15 by 10 foot prison cells. The tools of the trade are: a dry erase board, a marker, a pen, and books to base my lectures on. That's it. There is a common room that you share with all the other teachers. I have a desk and a computer. During my "plan sessions" you can often find me checking out Royals commentary, reading the KC star, perusing Facebook, or other productive activities like posting blogs. So, everybody can take a couple minutes to read this during work, because hell, I am writing the damn thing at work. If it takes ten minutes to read, it probably takes at least 45 minutes to write, and I write what ever comes into my head, one digression right after the other.


What ensued was a grand ol' celebration of epic portions. The vice president was in rare form. I have never seen upper level management partake in the festivities as much as my boss. She set the attitude of the night by pouring shot after shot of soju. The boss lady is around 33 and wants to be our friend so bad. The phrase "when in Rome" comes to mind on this night, just modified to "when in Korea do as a Korean does". I was not going to disappoint my boss in the first week by rejecting her soju offers! The venue was a pork house. Every table is armed with a grill and a call button. There is a nice patio and a seating capacity of about 100. My group consisted of 25 lined up in a row of 6 tables.



The call button was used sparingly at first, but towards the end of the night it was my best friend. I got a little button happy if you will, and the Koreans encouraged it. First it was drinks. "Would you like Coke to chase your Soju* "Try the plum wine." (it's excellent) "Here try cider." Cider is basically sprite, and I thought there was alcohol in it. Luckily I was duped; it is just a type of soda. Of course the call button was used to replenish our beer and soju reserves, as well as the food being served to us on the grill.



*I am not a huge soda drinker, and I tried to cut it out of my diet completely due to the obscene amount of high fructose corn syrup present in the serving size of coke. The coke in Korea does not use HFCS. They use sugar. Yeah, probably lots of it, but for the first time I can say that my throat did not hurt when taking a big gulp of refreshing coke. You could chug the delicious beverage. It was so much better!



The food was amazing. The grill is at a 10% grade. On the lower side is an overflowing pile of kimchi. Working up the grill you have the pig meat. I don't know what cut of the pig it is, all I know is that its fatty and meaty and delicious. And greasy. The grease then runs down into the kimchi. I am getting kind of sick of kimchi, after all, it is served with every meal, including breakfast. But greasy hot kimchi is a treat. I am getting incredibly hungry writing this. I think I'm salivating (maybe even drooling). Also included are vegetables and pineapples. The vegetables include normal mushrooms, long stringy mushrooms, onions, and pumpkin.* I like to put them below the pig fat (meat) too. Obesity might not be a problem over here, but corroded arteries are. And Fan Death. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death**. Keep in mind, there aren't any plates. You have the option of wrapping the food up in a piece of lettuce making a lettuce wrap, or you can dip the food in a variety of sauces. There is one I am told that is the Korean ketchup, a tangy A1 type sauce, a couple different powders, and a red chili sauce. All conveniently placed right in front of you.


*Jamaicans cook with pumpkin a lot as well. I always thought you just carved them, and made a pie with them once a year. Turns out it is a scrumptious veggie.


** I tried to make that link work, but I don't know if it works. Everything is in Korean on the computer, I feel like I am part of an older generation trying to navigate computers. I can relate to the readers that just learned how to turn off a computer, or who still have not quite learned how to post a comment. Which by the way, I tried to make it more user friendly. You don't have to have a Google account anymore. Google makes the default settings so only Google users are able to post a reply, so they can get you to sign up if you don't have an account. That is one of the many small reasons that Google stock is at 500 dollars.

The best part of eating is the group experience. Everyone is essentially eating off the same plate. After the third helping of the main dish, native Koreans started ordering other popular dishes. I literally ate like a king. "Yes I like the noodle dish, liquid yogurt is alright, will you please pass the rice." "Beer, Chris?" "When in Korea, Sophie*" These were my normal responses. We were there for for an eternity, to be honest, I could of stayed even longer. I never spent a dime either. Company tabs are in my top five coolest things list, making the list easy too.

*The Koreans have English names because they are English teachers. I can't say their real names, so I call them by their English names. I was introduced that way as well.

Then it was off to a noribong. The direct translation is singing room. It is Karaoke with a small group of people. The Koreans would sing a Korean song, and then the foreigners would bust out Sweet Caroline. They would sing a song, we would counter with Piano Man. It was so great! Meg won the grand prize of the night by singing We Didn't start the Fire*. She nailed it! It has a fast paced beat with obscure words. Steve, a fellow worker, said, "I would marry you based on that performance alone." John Roe had a microphone in hand, but to his credit knew that a genius was at work and only chimed in during the chorus. At the end of the song, I said, "You guys were awesome and by you guys I mean Meghan."

Here is the first part of the song.

49 Harry Truman, Doris Day, red china, Johnnie Ray

South pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio

50 Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television

North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe

51 Rosenberg's, h-bomb, sugar ray, panmunjomBrando, the king and I and the catcher in the rye

52 Eisenhower, vaccine, England's got a new queen Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye

Chorus: We didn't start the fire, It was always burning,

Since the worlds been turning, We didn't start the fire,No we didn't light it,

But we tried to fight it

It's a fast song, requiring the perfect amount of mental lubrication and soju was just the ticket. She was sooo good, that she has officially retired that song from her Karaoke playbook stating, "That was an out of body experience. I can't top it, so I might as well go out on top."

We are on cloud nine at the next bar, but it was getting late and our big group started to disband. We all called it a night. Looking back at our tale of adventure, brings back glorious memories of great food and people.

(To Be Continued...)