Free Whale

I get into the habit of remembering things long after they happened. I have quite a bit of time to kill during work. The school has gotten into the habit of assigning me with duties minutes before I get to go home, thus prolonging my day. English newspaper, English writing contest, English speaking contest all in one week. Being that I'm arguably the best English speaker at the school, my evenings between 4:30 and 7PM have turned into reading overly-dramatic articles about the Kimchi shortage, reading more essays about what the students think about the new English teacher (consensus: "Handsome, but he not my teacher."), all while the rest of the students shout questions at me in what they interpret as "practicing conversation." Some teacher also gave the students video cameras for an unknown reason with the apparent assignment of "Get Grack to dance on film."

During one of my someone-please-give-me-something-to-do-right-now-so-I-can-go-home-when-I'm-supposed-to-so breaks, I was flipping through the recent images I have taken on my ice cream hand phone and came across this one.

A few weeks ago I was out to dinner with a nice English fellow at one of those places you will go to only if your local nice English fellow is fluent in Korean. Next to us were two Korean businessmen doing what Korean businessmen do best - drink soju. Nice English fellow and myself were also indulging the the pastime, which is probably why I only discovered this photo now. Pictured above is what the Korean businessmen had brought into the restaurant with them and didn't finish all of. The nice lady that owned the restaurant had no reason to keep what they had left, so offered nice English fellow and myself an extra plate of "service," quite the common act in restaurants here. Said service was whale meat, which you may or may not know is a favorite among Asian businessmen that think they are way cool. Don't hate me. I'm just curious.

A student has just left my office after some brief conversation practice. "What did you do on the weekend?" She asks. I told her about my band that just played in Busan and how we topped the evening as the best of five bands that night. I said that we could win a million won if we win when we go back this weekend. I also told her of how I ran into three students from this very high school on the streets of Busan randomly. A very interesting weekend, I thought.

Her response - "Oh. You are very boring."

I can't give enough thanks to everyone in Daegu (and Busan) that supported us this weekend. You are the kimchi to my every Korean meal.