KBS

I visited Daegu this Halloween weekend for the second time to meet up with some Fulbright friends and do a little bit of hiking. Overall, the weekend was a success. Matt's homestay family was kind enough to host me and despite my debilitating hangover on Sunday morning, I somehow seem to have left their home with an invitation to return. It was really enlightening to get to know another Korean family and observe their lifestyle compared to that of the family I've spent the last 2 1/2 months with. After this visit, I can confidently say that the thing I am missing the most from my family is a general sense of humor. It's really difficult not being able to kick back with them without being expected to act like an English teacher or a cultural ambassador. The jokes and laughs that accompany being a part of a real family are certainly lacking in mine.

On Saturday night the streets of Daegu were swarming with foreigners dressed up in the kinds of ridiculous costumes and antics I have become accustomed to seeing after 4 years in college - girls wearing far too little clothing with regards to the temperature and guys who use Halloween as an excuse to wear makeup or call their football jersey a costume. The highlight of my weekend, however, was an interaction I had with a local Korean television company (KBS).

On Saturday afternoon, Matt, his homestay family, and I hiked Palgongsan to see Gatbawi - a massive, stone Buddha statue. These days, Gatbawi is entertaining thousands of hopeful parents who are hoping their devotion to him will push their high school students through the university entrance exams and into one of the top Korean universities this spring. We were there purely for the purpose of sightseeing but what happened next I could not have predicted.

In the same way that Americans throw pennies into fountains with the hope to be granted a wish, Korean hikers attempt to stick a 100 won coin to one of Gatbawi's rocky sides. It looked challenging so I decided to give it a try. No sooner than two minutes after I start the process do I feel a large camera uncomfortably close to the side of my head. I didn't think too much of it in that moment as I've become rather accustomed to Korean's noting my presence in odd ways. However, when the camera continued to linger, I thought I'd get to the bottom of it.

Some laughs, intense awkwardness, and a successful butchering of the Korean language later, it looks like I'm going to be on Korean TV this Thursday morning on KBS2. It turns out, the reporter was doing a story on Gatbawi's seasonal popularity and I was the most news-worthy person he could find to interview. If this mediocre reporter's story actually airs, I'm curious to see how the Korean media portrays a bumbling foreigner like myself. I'll be sure to make the video clip available to an audience of my choosing depending on how embarrassing it is. If nothing else comes of it, Matt and I definitely had some good laughs on the way down the mountain and his homestay family can now say they hosted a TV star for a weekend.