In Korea, it’s normal for coworkers to spend an unnecessarily large amount of time together outside of work. Monthly (or more) bonding sessions are a requirement and can be anything from a dinner to an overnight hiking trip. Fortunately I have never been forced to sleep in a cabin with any of my coworkers though I have had a variety of different dining experiences.
When I initially arrived at Youngshin Elementary School, I was placed in an office full of women over 30 years old. We had snack time everyday around 3:00pm; at this time we would gather around a round table and talk Korean…correction…they would talk to each other in Korean while I practiced sleeping with my eyes open. Many times I thought I might smash my head on the table from sudden unexpected unconsciousness. Though these snack hours were monotonous and a minor waste of time, I can say that I did learn a couple things:
One – I love Korean pears…they taste like gloriously crunchy, grape flavoured apples.
Two – I FUCKING HATE Korean grapes. The process of eating one of these stupid fruits is to shove the larger-than-life grape into your mouth and proceed to de-skin and de-seed it with your tongue. If that doesn’t make a person look stupid enough, you have to then spit the fruit afterbirth into your hand and display it on a napkin for everyone to see. UGH!
Three – Korean women can talk EXTREMELY fast without any breaks in conversation for a VERY long time. (I’m sure women in general can do this, but it’s extra impressive when you can’t understand anything that’s being said)
Dinners weren’t much different from snack time except that they were longer and sometimes required going for coffee as well. Seriously…we spend all day together…
The office dynamic changed with the teacher change-up at the start of the new school year. Most of the new teachers were younger and spoke English, so it was nice to be able to communicate with people a little more. Snack time was more fun because an automatic bread maker materialized and produced awesome fresh bread every day. The bread was a great conversation topic…sometimes the teachers would get adventurous and put cranberries in it. Dinners were about the same when the older ladies were around but once they left us young birds alone, the strangest conversations would emerge. I won’t go too much into it, but I heard things like ‘What’s your cup size?’ ‘Let me hug you so I can know’ and ‘I want to date a young boy’ WHAT!?
A year later we had another complete office change up and these are the people that I’m currently working with. I have to say that BY FAR this is the most interesting year. We actually have MEN in our office. The women are mostly the same demure Korean beauties but the men vary a lot in personality. Let me tell give you the lowdown:
Coach: Volleyball coach, very short and middle aged. The older women fret about him needing to get married and make fun of him for keeping pictures of female celebrities in his wallet. What a man.
Mr Chatty: Grade 4 art teacher, father of the office. Every morning of our first week together as an office he would walk right up to my desk and say “HELLO”. But don’t get me wrong, he is a very sweet man who always tries to speak to me in English.
Shy Guy: Grade 1-4 music teacher, youngest male in the office. He 100% always tries to avoid me and just generally looks awkward in most situations. Once my co-worker (and pretty close friend) heard that I had broken up with my boyfriend she immediately said that Shy Guy would take care of me and proceeded to call him over to our desks. I’m pretty sure he almost died from embarrassment because as soon as she asked him to come over he said he had to go to the bathroom and ran out the of the office.
King Oppa: Grade 5 science teacher, older gentleman, but takes pleasure in the fact that Mr Chatty is older than him. Refuses to speak English to me and demands that I speak to him in Korean. Most talked about teacher…all will be explained if you keep reading…
Standing up are my amazing lady co-workers. Sitting down from left to right: Shy Guy, a temp, Mr.Chatty, and Coach….Who knows where King Oppa is…
Our FIRST dinner together as an office was at a raw fish place. So, we get to the restaurant and somehow I end up in the middle which is odd because I’m usually banished to the end of the table and my section is dubbed “the English zone.” This time I was sitting in front of the two older gentlemen and between two of my favorite co-workers so I knew this dinner was going to be great and as soon as the soju hit the table I knew it was going to be even better! We had never had any alcohol at a dinner before, but ‘no alcohol’ does not fly with King Oppa. The evening progressed with the raw fish and the soju shots and the chatting. I noticed that Mr. Chatty wasn’t drinking, so I asked him why he didn’t drink. He told me that he likes to talk a lot already and if he drinks he talks even more, so he decided to stop drinking. Good call Mr. Chatty. King Oppa, on the other hand, was trashed. He was screaming SARANGHAE (I love you) to each person around the table, policing everyone’s soju glasses and calling one of the teachers GOONG (her last name is NamGoong) every 5 seconds. He also tried to give me a Korean lesson, said he wanted to take my boyfriend (at the time) out for soju, and told me that I should call him Wang Oppa (basically means king boyfriend). King Oppa was on FIRE! He was a glorious fucked up unicorn beacon of soju. At first, everyone was a little awkwarded out by his temporary psychosis, but eventually they started giving it right back to him….until he called the new fresh-out-of-university teacher a bastard for refusing to take a shot with him. HAHA! Animal. Shortly after this we ended our most amazing teacher dinner yet and went to our respective homes.
There is only one other occasion that I can tell you about concerning teacher dinners; this was our second dinner as an office. We went to a place called ‘Ashley Buffet’ and this place is exactly what you would expect from a western style buffet. This restaurant is a chain in Seoul and some of the locations have all-you-can-drink wine…but…this one didn’t and as you can guess…this did not fly with King Oppa. This man actually left the restaurant to buy a bottle of soju and (not so slyly) poured it into his water glass. This animal actually drank the WHOLE bottle himself within 30 minutes. To be fair, he did offer me some. What a gentleman. Once the dinner was finished I went home, but some teachers, including King Oppa, went for coffee afterwards. I was informed that King Oppa made another teacher bring him some MORE soju camouflaged in a water bottle so that he could drink in the cafe. Crafty man.
So far, this year has been the most eventful year for teacher dinners and I’m sure that it’s going to get even better. King Oppa and I are on the volleyball team together, which means MORE dinner opportunities with even MOOOORE alcohol. Let’s see how it goes…
TeetotheRAVEL 