When I got home on Saturday from my late night Bible study in Daegu, JiHey was shuffling around the house to a recognizable tune of sniffles and sneezes. She had somehow caught my cold. I felt bad about giving it to her, but I felt even worse as I tried to conduct class over her Kleenex swipes and nose blows. A couple other students were missing due to final exams, which left only two, so I concluded we should take a week off.
JiHey took some medicine and settled in for a nap as I headed to Hayang to meet SuJung and search for a winter coat that might blend in with the big city blacks and charcoal grays of Daegu. (I’d started to feel a bit silly in my red Columbia coat among a sea of neutral toned pea coats and formal parkas.) SuJung helped me find a beautiful gray coat for a reasonable price. We ate duk-buki at a small duk-buki diner and watched a Korean game show, which she translated for me. SuJung had to study, so I went home to entertain myself. I downloaded “My Sister’s Keeper” and balled my eyes out. (It’s a good one.)
On Sunday, I went out to Papa John’s for some pizza with my Dongshin friends. Some of the pizza in Korea has been less than impressive to me. Really lacking in sauce. But the Papa John’s was pretty good! Then someone suggested that we go to a Norae Bong with the objective of singing only Christmas songs. For the first 30 minutes or so, we successfully maintained a purely Christmas playlist. But sooner or later, American pop songs made their way into sing-a-long. Here’s a video of us singing, “Santa Clause is Coming to Town.”
Singing rooms usually include a couple of microphones, tambourines and maracas. As opposed to karaoke in the U.S., a singing room feels a bit less like performance and more like a bunch of friends singing together.
After an hour of singing, we met a few other people at a local coffee shop, where we snagged a glass-enclosed, private room in the back corner. We sat around a big table and played a Korean drinking game with a twist. Usually, one player points a gun-shaped hand at others and says “Gong!” “Gong!” “Chil!” or “Bang!”--passing an imaginary bullet from person to person around the room. Gong means 0 and chil is 7, so, in other words--007 Bang! Instead of drinking, we forced the messer-uppers (would-be-drinkers) to perform a sort of dare for the rest of us. Due to my blunders, I wound up balancing a book on my head for several minutes and performing ten seconds of the macarena.
The coffee shop closed at 11 p.m. and pushed us out in the chilly air once more. Our group dwindled down, and those who were left found warmth in a hookah bar with an Arabian ambience. (Maybe they’re all Arabian. Not sure. It was my first time in a hookah bar, though I tried hookah one time with Saudi friends.) According to the menu, the tobacco in hookah is nicotine and tar free. People who enjoy hookah like to entertain ways to release the smoke from their body. Straw props included. The remaining six of us enjoyed mint-flavored hookah and talked about our dream jobs and our childhood memories.
I stayed out too late to catch the bus home, but woke up early enough to make it home with a shower and a meal before work.
As I sat on the subway, I thought about how much my social life has changed since I’ve been in Korea. I’ve had more fun going out at night in Korea than I ever had in college. My roommate in college used to tell me that I should stay out late more. She considered it part of the college experience. But in college, I often did what I thought was the responsible thing. I always had something to do the next day. Sometimes I knew of a more “sensible” social event to attend.
But she was right. It’s fun to stay out late with people. It takes time, hours, to have a shared experience. Stick around because the sweetest, richest fellowship doesn’t come from a quick round of prayer requests. It’s fun to be with people. Whether silly or serious.
So as I sat at the bus stop on a Monday morning, watching people go off to work, to their somewhere-to-be, I felt very thankful. Thankful, somehow, that God put me in a situation where I would be so lonely and desperate for friendship that I wouldn’t take my opportunities for granted. It’s a gift, I think.
Speaking of gifts, the anticipation of Christmas is in the air. As an exercise in speaking directions last week, I asked my students tell me how to draw a snow man on the board, playing devil’s advocate, of course. I made them specify "big circle" and "above," "between" or "next to." Most of my kids enjoyed decorating the snowmen with scarves, mittens and bucket-hats. (It’s a Korean thing. As well as strawberry noses, I learned!)
The weather is not at all snowy. Sometimes it’s even warmish in the middle of day. But the subway stations have holiday trees on display and someone put up Christmas lights in the front of the Jilyang church today. My church has been rocking around the advent wreath each Sunday, and next week, we will have a white elephant gift exchange after service. Meanwhile, I got a Christmas package in the mail. Thanks, Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa!
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