Korean Drinking Culture

It's not until you come back to school with a little bit of a buzz after lunch with some of your colleagues that you realize how different Korean drinking culture is from America's. While a large percentage of Americans begin their tempestuous relationship with alcohol in high school and continue it into those glorious 4+ years we call college, most Korean people do not seriously drink until they reach university. For most, the party begins in that first semester of college when the Korean young adult finally breaks away from his or her strict and regimented life at home and experiences social "freedom" for the first time.

For many Koreans, particularly men, an emphasis on drinking permeates almost every social sphere. For example, enjoying a meal without alcohol after 11am is rare, regardless if it's in the middle of a work day. Also, while Friday and Saturday nights are still the most popular times to bust open the soju, it's hard to find a Korean restaurant in any major city without at least a table of dedicated drinkers on any given night. The life of a post-graduate Korean woman, however, is much different. Typically, once a Korean woman pops out a couple of kids, the fun is over. Many female graduates in Korean enjoy drinking as much as men but the social stereotypes prevent them from engaging in the same types of debauchery that men do. For example, if a Korean man stumbles (or drives) home at 3am on a Tuesday after a company dinner, it's considered normal and is accepted by most. But if a Korean woman were to duplicate this behavior, some eyebrows would certainly be raised - especially her husband's.

If you're out in a Korean city past 1am on a Friday or Saturday (or any day for that matter) you will likely see men of all ages passed out in alleyways, gutters, parks and under the occasional parked car. Heavy drinking combined with relatively little sleep and an intense work ethic often equals trouble for Korean men. Miraculously, the majority of these sleeping drunkards are left alone until morning when they wake up and realize that the wetness on their cheek isn't drool but rather a stray dog relieving itself on their face. No, I've never actually seen this happen but it had to at some point right?

As I've mentioned in a previous post or two, Koreans rarely refuse alcohol when it's presented to them. As a rule, if someone older than you, especially someone of the same gender, presents you with a cup/shot/glass of alcohol, you're expected to accept it without any questions. Being the youngest teacher at my school, I am often put in these situations at school dinners. At the risk of disrespecting one of my colleagues, I am often fed soju by the bottle and briefly left wishing I was a woman for that meal (women often put a small towel by their place setting and pour their shots out onto it while no one is looking).

Clearly, alcohol adds a new dimension to many social situations and there's a lot to keep in mind when it's present in Korea. Time to drink some coffee and sober up.

Vacation Wrap-up II

What I thought was going to be long, three-week interval of boredom in Korea turned into an impromptu trip to the Philippines where I received my Open-Water Scuba Certification. In Moalboal at the tip of the island of Cebu, these old-fashioned, sturdy crafts took us to gorgeous dive sites where we practiced the necessary skills and safety procedures required for the license.

After full days of hard-work and 24 hours of food poisoning on Cebu, we made our way to Boracay. A true vacationer's dream, Boracay has something for everyone. This beach, only a two minute walk from our hostel, was where we spent the majority of our days in between sampling the diverse selection of food the island had to offer.

One of the finest photo-ops of the trip was the Boracay sunset. Special sailboats take tourists out to experience an unimpeded view of the horizon but shots from the beach were just as good, if not better with the boats giving the photos additional ambiance.

Rachel and I crammed A LOT into her twelve-day visit to Korea at the end of February. Showing a visitor around a country, which I have come to know better than I thought in six months, gave me a chance to do some sightseeing that the Korean nightlife had previously obstructed. This shot, taken at 경복궁 (Gyeongbok Palace) illustrates part of the traditional Korean culture that, to a degree, I have come to take for granted. It goes without saying that her visit was unbelievable.

I remember thinking to myself when I took this photo, as the sun disappeared behind this row of hotels and apartments on the shores of Jeju-do, that the end of every day paves the way for the dawn of the next. As I enter the second half of my year in Korea, I close the book on a first half full of challenges and accomplishments and turn the page into another myriad of unknown experiences that lie ahead.

Vacation Wrap-up

It is impossible to encapsulate all of the details and nuances that made my two month (paid) vacation from teaching so memorable. At school, in my first lesson of the new year, I showed my 2nd year students a brief slideshow with pictures from my experiences and travels. My mind flooded with the memories from home and reuniting with friends and family alike. My thoughts returned to the tranquil depths of the ocean at Cebu and the beaches of Boracay as I reflected on a true paradise on earth. My goals for the remainder of my time in Korea began to take clearer shape as I thought about what I have left to accomplish. Before getting back to business, I want to immortalize some of these memories in writing for myself and any readers, loyal or not, I might have in cyberspace.

At a time when I was especially homesick, I was thankful to have friends with whom I could share the holidays with. For one reason or another, a large chunk of Fulbright ETAs spent Christmas in Korea and spending time together in Seoul (and organizing a very bootleg Yankee Swap) was the perfect way to prepare me for the holiday season I was about to be thrown back into upon my return to America.

Spending time at home during Christmas and the start of the new year was a welcome escape from the daily pressures and obligations that surround me in Korea.

One thing I couldn't have prepared for was the amount of snow I was about to encounter. I've grown up around snowy winters my entire life, but after spending time in a country whose infrastructure would collapse with 1/4 the amount of this white, powdery goodness falling from the sky, it took some extra adjustments to reacquaint myself with the New England winter.

Nothing truly could have prepared me for what it was like to see my friends again. After six months away, in a transition time when people's lives are changing dramatically by the day, I was worried about how I was going to factor into everyone's new schedules and routines. For those closest to me, I always knew that we would be able to fall back into old habits like no time had passed.

Upon my return to Korea, I was relieved and anxious to learn that I had been set up with a new homestay for the second half of my grant year. Already, this family has exceeded my expectations and made a concerted effort to include me while understanding that I come from a different culture and set of norms. I feel more comfortable with them than I did during the entirety of the summer and fall.