Wednesday Night 회식

회식 with the 택견 gym folks

Oh, 회식 (an evening out for co-workers or members of a formal group, meant to foster relationships). Good for building 정, bad for everything else, it seems. As tomorrow is Teacher's Day (스승의날), the folks at my taekgyeon gym decided to go out for seafood and drinking instead of training tonight. It was ostensibly to thank 관장님 and 사범님 for being awesome teachers, but it was also because Koreans love seafood and drinking.

I tried half-heartedly to get out of it. I mean, it's Wednesday night. It's a school night -- I have class tomorrow! Also, I want to exercise, not eat shellfish! But although I dragged my feet and made excuses, eventually I made it to the restaurant; I felt badly for my reluctance, too, since 회식 is actually very culturally important, and I didn't want to seem like a flake.

Well, even though I'm smiling in the photo, it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows tonight.

Pro: admittedly amazing seafood / Con: my stomach hurts

Pro: got to hang out with fun people / Con: 10pm-12:30am on a school night

Pro: a chance to practice Korean / Con: a chance to suck at Korean

Pro: when they get tipsy they tend to compliment me a lot / Con: aggressive heteronormativity

And I mean aggressive. Like, "You're so handsome! Why don't you have a girlfriend? Why? WHY? WHY???" Later, "That girl in your profile photo is your girlfriend right? No? Liar!" Later, "So, why don't you have a girlfriend? What, do you like men? Do you? Do you?"

"부끄러워요," I said. I'm embarrassed. Please stop. And eventually they changed the subject.

Con: we went Dutch

Con: I didn't exercise tonight

Con: have a lot of work to catch up on

Pro: built 정

So where does that leave me? 회식 can be extremely uncomfortable sometimes. I enjoy it for what it is, but when I'm already not feeling up to extended, alcohol-fueld social interaction, it can veer perilously close to being a total trainwreck. I, just... on a school night! I should have been asleep by eleven. And here I am blogging about it past one. Yo, Andrew, get your priorities straight.

This, by the way, was what we ate. That is an entire octopus! Also scallops, severl kinds of clams, mussels, cuttlefish, shrimp, crab, and abalone that were still alive when this platter was brought to our table. Would've been great for dinner, but midnight snack?

택견회식

택견도장에는 회식이다.

Wow, it is 1:30am on Thursday morning, and I have just returned home from a 회식 with members of my 택견 gym. Yes, "company dinners" aren't restricted to companies or workplaces; I was invited to this outing along with the director, the trainer, and the director's old students. Actually, it wasn't really an outing, because we just ordered delivery chicken and liquor and had a mini-picnic on the floor of the 도장. I was about to be worried about spilling greasy meat onto the padded floors, but 관장님 laid out newspapers and otherwise didn't seem to mind. Then we all sat down and feasted!

The evening was all in all pretty fun, taking into account the fact that I only understood about 50% of what anyone was saying and often tuned out. But we played some 족구, talked a lot, drank a lot, and devoured the 치킨 and 족발. I made a few new friends out of 관장님's former students, mostly on account of me being able to speak English. Their introductions went a little like this: "Hi, nice to meet you. How old are you? Oh! We're the same age -- let's be friends! What's the best way to learn English quickly?" Only slight exaggeration intended... But I also got to practice my Korean, talking about rock climbing (암벽등반을 캘리포니아에서 해본적이 있다!), quinoa (베지테리엔이면, 키놔가 완전 단백질이니까 건강에 좋다!), my hobbies, and more.

Around 12:30am, I started to get pretty tired, and I thought about school the following day. In addition, the conversation turned super-serious as some of the adults downed more and more drinks (we had been drinking for three hours by then, and there seemed to be an endless supply of 관장님's favorite 막걸리 brand, 국순당...). At one point two people were having a very heated discussion about taekgyeon, and everyone else became quiet and tense as they listened, but even though I could understand a lot of what they were saying, I still couldn't follow the gist of the issue. 괜찮아...

Anyway, I had a nice, 정-filled evening, and I also appreciated meeting Koreans who are about my age. I hope we can keep in touch! Even if they just want me to be their English tutor, well, at least they can be my Korean tutors in return. Win-win.

회식

It's hard to translate the word 회식 (hweshik). Naver says it's "get-together" or "officers dining in", but the first is too broad and the second is too clumsy, in my opinion. The two words individually are Sino-Korean (會*, meaning a meeting, and 食, meaning food), but the phrase doesn't exist in Chinese as far as I'm aware.

So when I want to tell people in English that I went to a 회식, I literally say, "I went to a hweshik." And if they're native English teachers in Korea, it's likely that they'll know what that means.

A hweshik, then, is a dinner outing specifically for members of a school or company. It's like an institution-sponsored night of food, fun, and 정-building. They are very common, and commonly end in lots of very happy drunk Koreans singing at a 노래방. Or so I've been told.

I've been to two hweshiks with the faculty of Changwon Science High so far. The first was to toast a farewell (송별연회) to our outgoing principal, and the one I went to tonight was to welcome in the new one. At neither party did anyone surpass even mild tipsiness, and I, especially -- not wanting to embarrass myself with my lightning-quick Asian glow -- sipped that soju as slowly as possible.

But while the first hweshik was awkward, because I hardly knew anyone and just listened to one of my co-teachers translate everything everyone else was saying, tonight was more fun. By this time, all of the other teachers know who I am, and some of them have apparently latched onto me despite the fact that I can't even remember their names.

The two who wanted to sit next to me teach math and chemistry, and while they're both married with kids, they're still among the youngest of my co-workers. (Have I mentioned yet that I'm closer in age to my students than to any of the other teachers at my school?) Upon sitting down, they declared that they were the "Andrew Fan Club". I had trouble understanding this at first, because transliterated into Korean, this becomes en-de-lyu pen ke-lub (앤드류 팬 클럽). I also have no idea why they want to be my fan club; nevertheless, they have designated themselves to be chief and manager. I should learn their names.

Again, conversation started off in stilted English ("What are you doing for Chuseok?" "Do you like math?"), moved to broken Korean ("I'm going to Daegu with my homestay family, and I was terrible at math in high school"), and then lapsed into their fluent Korean with me zoning out or texting. Math Teacher (MT) was humorously trying to keep me in the loop by staying glued to his dictionary and trying to translate as fast as he could. Here's how that went:

Me: *thinking about blogging*
MT: Investment techniques.
Me: What?
MT: Investment techniques. *shows me the dictionary on his smartphone*
Me: Oh, okay, Investment techniques. Why?
MT: They are talking about investment techniques.
Me: Oh, okay! Um... which bank do you use?
Everyone: *starts arguing about the best banks in Korea, in Korean*
Me: *zones out again*

And then there was Chemistry Teacher (CT), who trying so hard to increase his vocabulary.

Me: *points to what looks like oil* What is this?
CT: *unintelligible Korean*
Me: Okay, I'll just look that up in the dictionary. Ah, sesame oil!
CT: Sesame oil! Yes. With... *points to the grains of rock salt mixed in* ... Sodium chloride.
Me: Ah, yes, we call that salt.

Every time Chemistry Teacher or Math Teacher would successfully translate something difficult into English, they'd give each other high-fives across the table. Computer Science Teacher was just amused. She doesn't speak much English, is what I gathered.

Anyway, that was my second hweshik. The food was great, and the company was nice. It was really quite tame, even tamer than the first. From what I've heard of my Fulbright colleagues' experiences, these dinner parties can get wild. It's a well-known fact that Korean educators are some of the most hardworking -- and most stressed-out -- employees of the state. Thus, it follows that when they have an opportunity to completely unwind, they will, and the spirits flow in proportion. But my high school is actually in the middle of administering midterm exams. Half of the teachers actually returned to campus after dinner to continue working (grading exams or whatever), ostensibly until nine or ten at night, as usual. At Changwon Science High School, I guess that's how we roll.

위하여! Cheers!**

- - -
*LOL. As soon as I typed that Chinese character, my host mother came home, and I almost greeted her with a cheery "你好!" What is wrong with me?

**More correctly, that means "To...!", as in "To us! To health! To Changwon Science High School!", etc.

배구 - Volleyball

This one's for Tracey, a fellow Norcal-er who randomly played professional volleyball in Slovenia for one year. In Korean language classes during Orientation, Tracey was our go-to sports example person because she talked about volleyball at least once a day. Seriously, nobody in our class will ever forget that paegu means volleyball.

I also happen to really enjoy volleyball, although two years on the high school JV team and two years on the college club team have proven to me beyond a doubt that I'm perfectly mediocre at the sport. Still, when I was invited by some of the other teachers at Changwon Science High to their weekly "Sports Day" with hints that they liked to play volleyball, I was more than happy to accept. First of all, I want to get to know the other teachers at my school better. There are only around thirty total. (The English department consists of three teachers, including myself, and because I spend all day in the English department office, I basically never see anyone else at this school except for during lunch. It's maddening sometimes.) Secondly, I've been a total couch potato for the past week, sitting at my computer for six or seven hours a day, and coming home to sit on the couch to play board games with my younger host brother. I've definitely been restless, and I am sore in need of exercise.

So, yesterday was my first Wednesday sports day! I had brought along a change of casual clothes, and at 4:45pm I wandered over to the gym to see what was up. I was met by about a dozen teachers, all male, some of whom I'd never seen before and some of whom I recognized from the teachers' conversation course I threw together on Monday. All of them knew who I was already, of course, but I still felt a bit out of place. I think the youngest of these teachers is in his mid-thirties; I'm closer in age to their students than to them!

But whatever. We played three games to twenty-one, and it turned out to be tons of fun. 생각보다 재미있었어요! Much more thrilling than I'd anticipated. I don't know how long these middle-aged men have been doing their sports club together, but they mostly knew what they were doing when it comes to volleyball; some of the rules had been simplified, but I had no trouble fitting in during the match. My team recognized in the second game that I had some spike potential, and our setter gave me some great fours. The third game, our tie-breaker, was especially close and intense; the gym teacher (who runs the club and who was obviously the most competent of us all) went for a tip I sent over the net -- which was lower than usual, definitely helping my spikes -- and slightly pulled a muscle. Oops :(

In the end, my team lost, and my t-shirt was soaked through and practically dripping with sweat, but that was okay. It was all fun and games! At least, it was just fun and games for me; I gathered from what little Korean I understand that all the other teachers had placed bets on the outcome! Like, serious bets: ten bucks to each player on the winning team! Ha! And that's just the first of three stereotypically Korean additions that I witnessed to our little competition.

The second is that none of the men would ever dive for a ball -- for obvious reasons -- but if a ball did happen to go short, they would all invariably stick out their feet to kick it back up. This wasn't even done for humorous effect; it seemed as if this randomly thrown-in soccer move was just as legitimate as a normal bump or set. As far as I'm aware, "foot digs" are technically not illegal during play. It's just that while they're super-rare in American volleyball, I'm not at all surprised that soccer-obsessed Korean men made ample use of it, an often to great effect, to boot.

The third is that when we took water breaks, there was no water. Instead, there was Gatorade (normal), Pocari Sweat (normal for Asians), and... Hite (하이트), which is a rather cheap Korean beer (not normal?). Oh, and there were chips. Haha! I think that next week I'll just bring my own water bottle. And to be sure, I will be there next week. I had a fantastic time this time around, and I'm looking forward to getting my butt kicked in indoor soccer (축구, chukgu).

P.S. One thing I forgot to mention was that after Sports Day, all of those teachers go out together to eat (and probably drink themselves silly). It's known as a 회식 (hweshik), which I guess roughly translates to a dinner meeting? But it's not really a meeting at all, just a camaraderie-building hangout time. I've already been to one, but it was with my school's soon-departing principal (long story, I'll explain later) and probably isn't what a normal 회식 will look like. The point is, I wasn't aware that they were going out after the match, so I had to awkwardly and politely decline, but I'd like to go next week.

노래방 - Karaoke!

Noraebang, or NLB for the proud speakers of Konglish, is the Korean version of what seems to be an Asian trend: private rooms for friends to rent out for an hour and sing all the latest pop songs (or any song they like, really). They're usually BYOB, so anyone can get over "stage fright" before the evening really gets going. That said, noraebang makes for an excellent party space or just a fun place to chill and hang out.

Julia and I got "토네이도" (Tornado) desserts at Lotteria!

My first experience with a karaoke room was in Taiwan (where it's called 卡拉-OK), but the selection of English songs was paltry. Here in Korea, even the smallest of 노래 연습 방 (Yeah, some of the "classier" NLB are called "singing practice rooms" instead of "singing rooms") has hundreds of hits from the American songbook.

NLB was on my Korea bucket list, and I wanted to knock it out early on -- with friends from Orientation -- especially because I'd need some experience before my principal and co-teachers invite me out to a 회식 (hweshik, or dinner meeting that is commonly followed by 노래방). It was a couple of weeks into Orientation before I finally had the time and energy to spend a night out. It was the night after our placement ceremony, and I wanted to celebrate. My friends and I went into town (tiny little Goesan...) and hit up the Lotteria first. Lotteria is like the Korean version of McDonald's. I really wanted to try a "토네이도" (Tornado), which is like a McFlurry but much, much smaller. In fact, serving sizes of everything in Lotteria were rather meager. But I guess it keeps Koreans from overeating the way Americans do. Non-Olympic athlete Americans, that is.

After Lotteria and a quick round at B&B, it was NLB time! We went to a place called "스카이 노래 연습 방" and got a room for two hours for 30,000원 (a little less than $30). Because there were a dozen of us, it turned out really cheap for us all, so that was great. And then... let the singing begin!

Tyler and Sara jamming to Justin Bieber's "Boyfriend". Yup.

We didn't even try any of the Korean songs, except for one, but I didn't know it, so... oh well. Most of our time was spent in 90's pop, Disney songs, and "Call Me Maybe"-esque fare. My favorites were probably "Lady Marmalade" from Moulin Rouge, Blink 182's "Semi-Charmed Kind of Life" (although mid-way through the song I got really embarrassed because I remembered what the lyrics were actually referring to...) and "Colors of the Wind".

It was almost one in the morning when we finished -- I haven't been awake that late for the past month -- and we walked back to campus, singing Adele and the Pokémon theme song very loudly. All in all, it was tons of fun! Just the kind of thing I needed after a stressful week. I'd like to go again, but I don't think I'll have time, because Orientation is almost over. Who knows what it'll be like if I actually have to go to NLB with my colleagues? I swear it's a thing here. I guess I'll look forward to it, if it's anything close to this!

Toward the end of the night (like... 12:30am-ish), everyone was up and dancing. I forget what song this was, though!