Gangdongstock '10

I write this entry from a snow-enclosed house in Northern New Jersey. One hour after laboriously digging a small Ford automobile out from an overnight blanket, one day after telling the cellphone man that I am fluent in Korean, two days after a 5-hour layover in Chicago spent drinking with a man named Lou, and three days after sitting on a runway in Tokyo for 2 hours because of a leaky faucet in the executive-class lavatory that caused a 5-hour drinking session in Chicago with Lou.

But let's take it back even further to the year 2010 where the greatest festival known to eastern Daegu rocked the small and scarcely populated district.

Gangdongstock took place over the course of two days. For two kickin' days the students set up their homerooms with various money-making endeavors, including cafes, bakeries, carnival-esque gamerooms, haunted houses, shooting ranges, and open-flame-no-adult-supervision funhouses. As the Native English Teacher at the school it was my job to be pulled from room to room and not have to pay the outrageous prices set by the students for their various capitalist ventures. W100 for a coffee? I'll steal it from the teacher's room, thanks.

Any capitalist-stricken society must of course be overrun with suffocating advertisements.







Next the rooms need to be properly identified, naturally.

"Greg recommends" followed by a forced signature. Pure genius.

An English-loathing student with a projectile weapon. Perfect.

Bouncer.

Can't forget the noraebang.


The traditional Korean game of running towards a line of lit candles and trying to extinguish them by diving right before you hit them and waving a blanket downwards with all of your body strength. Don't forget to keep parental supervision out of the picture. A classic.






Haunted House, two days before Christmas.


The peace signs aren't very frightening.

Can't forget about the hippie jam band blasting American 80's power ballads in the hallway non-stop for 6 hours.







By nightfall, the big shows begin.

Make sure those smoke machines are running smooth.

Do the fire machines work? Maybe. Let's test them out on the foreigner teacher's band while they stand dangerously close.

That is rock and/or roll.