Friday Night Fights?

I don't drink very often. This is not so much a health choice as it is a financial choice. It takes a lot of the fire water to get me drunk so I usually don't bother. When I do drink I don't drink to get drunk I drink because I like the taste of beer. But, I've seen what happens to the human body when people drink too much and it ain't pretty so I end up having a cocktail or a beverage about two to three times a month. This past Friday I went out with some folks from my work. The drinks were flowing and most in my party were buzzed if not sloppy. I was drinking but I could tell early on this was not going to be a night Chris feeling good with drink. Being the only one in a party who can see the trees in the forest means that I bare a certain amount of responsibility. You end up calming down the more rambunctious members and apologizing to strangers for certain behaviors. The thing about Korea is that everyone gets drunk in this country. It's so strange to see person after person being carried by their friends. It's like watching the Korean version of the movie Weekend at Bernies over and over again. These people might as well be dead. They can't walk and they can't speak.

It became very clear to me this Friday that Koreans get drunk in a different way than the foreigners do. Most foreigners get drunk like frat boys. They are loud, annoying, belligerent, and horny. Koreans are not usually loud in their drunkenness. It's actually quite the opposite. They are strangely quiet, like human jellyfish floating aimlessly through the narrow streets. I find myself avoiding them for fear of somehow getting stung. But I was not out with jellyfish, I was out with foreigners. They were more like sharks, constantly moving around and talking less they suffocate. I have never liked to go out in large groups. I don't like having that much attention directed my way but in Korea it doesn't matter. I'm going to have attention given to me regardless of the number of people in my party. Friday was a good night for people watching.

I'm still amazed at how skinny Korean people are. They just don't have mass. It has made me aware of how big boned I truly am. The ironic thing is that Koreans do not move. They don't get out of the way for you. They cut in front of you and they attempt to push through people. This, in turn, forces me to walk like I'm surrounded by eggs. The last thing I want to do is break a Korean so I move out of the way and I slow my walk when the crowd becomes to thick. Sometimes, when I'm irritated, I don't move. My posture is stiff and I become a human tank. It usually takes the sacrifice of three Korean eggs before they realize this foreign guy has had enough for the day. They approach me and assume that I'm going to move out of their way. I can see the look on their face when they realize I'm not moving and it's too late for them to get out of my way. After the third of forth Korean is sent flying off my body a pathway begins to form in front of me and I walk unobstructed for the remainder of my trip. But I save this attitude for those days where I find myself wishing I was any where else in the world. Lucky for me those days have been few.

Friday was entertaining enough. I ate good food and hung out in some interesting bars. Koreans love hip-hop. Which is kind of ironic because I'd say the majority of Koreans are scared of black people. But they love the hip-hop. 80's hip hip. That's right....80's hip-hop. It would be embarrassing if it were not for the fact that everybody in this category dresses like Easy-E is still alive and they are going to a Doug-E Fresh concert. So I silently chuckle to myself at the absurd perfectness of it all. There are a lot of hip-hop clubs in Korea and I went to about half of them on Friday. My friends kept wanting to go so I followed. We also went into a bar that can only be described as unique. It reminded my of Yoda's house in The Empire Strikes Backs. It was all white with rounded walls. It was like drinking inside of a giant cave on some distant planet. Before you enter the bar, you take your shoes off and put them in plastic bags which are provided for you. This is so your shoes don't get wet if you feet slip into one of the many crevices on the floor which are filled with flowing water. There are no chairs in the bar, only pillows that circle thick, cut logs which you can place your drinks on. I will definitely be going back to this place.

I sometimes feel like the Korean women are having a private contest to see who can wear the shortest dress or skirt. I found the winner this Friday. Her "dress" if you can call it that was the shortest thing I've ever seen. It would barely have covered a new born baby....a premature newborn baby. I found myself feeling very uncomfortable for her until I remembered it was Korea and nobody cares. Korean men don't hassle women the way Americans and other foreigners do. Korean men are more interested in their buddies than they are women walking around. It's one of the things they do that I think foreign guys could learn from. They don't whistle at women, make crude comments, or look at them like they are walking vagina's. So the scrap of clothing this girl had on did not turn a single head. I also happened to be the only foreign face on the street at that time. I had walked outside to speak with my girlfriend and left my friends downstairs.

The night was pretty uneventful until we got in a cab to take us back to our city. We were probably 20 minutes by car away. By the time we left there were only four people left in my party. Three foreigners and one Korean named Jerry. Jerry was probably the first Korean that I made friends with when I arrived here. We all work together. So Jerry negotiated the price for the cab ride and they proceeded to pass out cold while we drove home. Unfortunately, I was not drunk and stayed awake for the ride from hell. Korean cab drivers are crazy enough when there is lots of traffic but give them open road at 3am and it's like speed racer. This man was driving so fast that it was like being on a roller coaster without the guarantee. If I had been drunk I would have thrown up and if I had been full I would have shit myself. This man should not be allowed to drive. But, we arrived safely and filed out of the cab. This is when the fireworks started. The meter read 34 dollars and he tried to charge us 45 dollars for the ride. We had negotiated 33 dollars for the ride before we got in. When we argued with the man he got out of the cab and 5ft 2in. of Korean fury was unleashed on us. Three drunk guys, myself and an angry cab driver. This was how my Friday night ended. I'm not sure if he ended up getting the extra money he was trying to extort from us but I ended up giving Jerry an extra 10,000 won and telling him to pay this asshole but not before letting him know that he was a dishonest fuck who deserves to be beat and left on the other side of the DMZ (North Korea).

Now that little statement might sound like I was drunk but I was just angry. There are a lot of things that happen in Korea involving money which are completely unfair. You have to live hear to get the full effect of it. It boils down to the fact that people lie. They lie to you about service and they lie to you about how much something is really going to cost. They usually wait until the service has been rendered and then they try and intimidate you into paying. I fear that one day this tactic is going to be used when I'm in a really bad mood. I might get kicked a couple times but once I get in close I will knock a mother fucker out! Just kidding....kind of. I consider myself to be pretty non-violent these days but sometimes I taste the salty anger of my youth.

I think I've had my fill of going out on the weekends for this month. I think I've had my fill of a lot of things. The older I get the more patience I find I have for people but the less patience I have for bullshit. There's a lot of bullshit in this country.