I’m a skier. I always have been. Since my dad was on the Vail Ski Patrol the year I was conceived, I’m lead to assume that I was skiing (or at least along for the ride) long before I even had legs to strap skis onto. Though my dad has claimed to be the “responsible lot of the bunch”, I’m also going to assume that my short attention span and possible ADD can be blamed on the free ski patrolmen beers doled out at Donavon’s Copper Bar in the late 70s.
As such, it has not escaped my attention (short as it may be) that while I have been spending the year teaching English in South Korea, my hometown of Vail, Colorado has been experiencing a season of record snowfall and seemingly endless powder days. My so-called friends have reminded me of this fact as the header of nearly every email I’ve received dating back to December.
There is a scene near the end of my favorite movie, A River Runs Through It, where the main character Norman and his brother Paul are spending a final afternoon fishing together on the Big Blackfoot River in Montana. Norman had just sprung news on his family that he had been offered, and would be accepting, a teaching position at the University of Chicago. Standing on the banks of the river, sharing a smoke with Paul, Norman chooses to inform his brother that he will also be getting married to his beloved Jesse.
Paul (Brad Pitt, for those of you who haven’t seen the movie) takes a long drag from the cigarette, looks skyward and flashes an ambiguous, self-analytical smile. “Yes, quite a day”, he says before turning his back and walking out towards the river.
With every email and phone call I’ve received telling me about the ridiculous amounts of snow that have blanketed Vail creating legendary ski days, my response has been fairly uniform to Paul’s. “Yes, quite a day”, I’ve grumbled to myself - happy for them, but internally cursing them and their damn powdery achievements.
So like Paul, who had fly fishing to take solace in, I had been clinging to my own worldly experiences and the knowledge that I would be skiing again soon, not at home, but in Japan. This, in my mind, would make up for every missed powder day of the 2007-08 Colorado ski season.
Having read an article in POWDER Magazine some years ago about a ski resort called Niseko at the far north of Japan (Hokkaido), I had made up my mind that this was where I was going to go. I spent over a month planning the trip; securing lodging, finding a ski shop that would rent me the same skis I ski on at home, buying my ferry ticket from Korea to Japan and also a Japan Rail Pass to gain me access to the entire countries’ rail network. It was a well-laid plan.
And then I stepped foot on Japanese soil.
Having sailed the open seas (albeit on a high speed ferry) from southern Korea to southern Japan, I made my way to the Hakata train station in Fukuoka, Japan. With my rail pass in hand, I stepped up to the ticket counter to inquire about the best train route to get me to Hokkaido. The lady, who couldn’t have been more pleasant, looked at me like I might not be right in the head. None-the-less, she indulged my request and scoured the various train schedules, required transfers and various routes that could get me there. I began to get slightly concerned as I watched her jot down notes that seemed to indicate that this trip might involve a bit more than my anticipated plan of getting on the so-called "bullet train" and whizzing up north.
On board "The Beetle" - high speed ferry from Korea to Japan
After the woman went through the various scenarios that could get me there, I then mentioned that I would need to be back to Fukuoka five days later in order to make it to school on time to teach on Monday. More frantic typing and note taking ensued. I was undaunted, determined to make it to my destination, because well, I hadn’t made any semblance of a contingency plan. This simply had to work out. After exhausting all of the possible options to get me to Hokkaido and back, she informed me that best case scenario I would get to spend a total of 10 hours in Niseko before having to turn back around. I’d have 10 hours to ski and nearly 80 hours on trains and additional layovers.
Yes Norman, quite a day.
With my heart pushing me onward to Niseko, my stupid brain wouldn’t let me go through with it. So, internally quoting Homer as I frequently do (Simpson, not The Iliad), I conceded with the thought: “All right brain, I don’t like you and you don’t like me, so let’s just do this and I’ll get back to killing you with beer”. Thankfully Japan sells really good beer in vending machines.
After realizing my "plan" was shot, I needed a little help from both of these in Hakata Train Station
So putting Plan B into place (the plan where I just go with the flow and hope for the best), I ultimately decided to board a train to Tokyo. I had no reservation for lodging, no comprehension of the Japanese language and no idea about what might lie ahead over the next five days. But I did have one strange little trick up my sleeve. I call it Marcelo.
Marcelo is the only other foreign teacher at my school in Daegu. We get along quite well, but to say that we are very different individuals is an understatement. Marcelo is a “gamer” (an on-line video game aficionado), he reads comic books, is into martial arts and doesn’t drink. He’s of Chinese decent, lives in Korea, but is studying to pass a Japanese proficiency test. Don’t ask me to explain that one because I can’t. He also has a heart of gold, which makes it so much more difficult to give him a ton of crap.
Marcelo and I departing Daegu by train at 6 a.m.
Marcelo already had plans in place to visit Tokyo for a few days over our break for the Chinese New Year. As aforementioned, he also speaks some Japanese, so I decided to ride his coattails to Tokyo until I could figure out what I was going to do next.
We arrived in Tokyo around 9:30 p.m. and decided to head to the Youth Hostel where he held a reservation and hope that they might have an extra bed available for this wayward traveler as well. If nothing else, maybe I could find a nearby hotel. Falling into the category of “things always seem to work out for John Buckley when his back is against the wall”, the hostel did have one last bed available during this busy holiday week. But checking in at 10:15 p.m., the front desk informed us that the doors were locked at 11 p.m. We hadn’t eaten all day, so this was disappointing for reasons that went beyond me just thinking that it was kind of lame.
Fortunately, there was a McDonald’s located right around the corner. . .welcome to Japan – forget about fugu (the poisonous Japanese blow fish delicacy), have a Big Mac! Probably equally as risky.
This entry is just gaining a full head of steam and I’ve already mentioned my short attention span, so I’ve decided to post my Japan trip in installments. Stay tuned for Part II where I board a Japanese whaling ship from a Green Peace skiff in the South Pacific, totally kick the ass of a Japanese sumo wrestler and secretly sign the Kyoto Protocol on behalf of George W. Bush. . .
Growing up as a young ski racer in Vail, Colorado, there were certain things that we just didn’t question our coaches about. Questions like: “Why does your breath smell funny this morning?” “What’s that funny brown stuff in your teeth that you keep spitting in the snow?” -and- “Why do we have to wear these skin-tight, neon suits in below freezing weather (and more importantly, can I put a sock down there)”.
Above all, the brain buster we knew that might result in actual brain busting was “Why do we have to do this?
I still recall one such day filled with questions that begged to be asked. Our coach Phil had made us hike up the mountain below a perfectly good chairlift. This would make us tough we were lead to believe, though I still think Phil was just having girl trouble and probably hung-over to boot. Truth-be-told, hung-over or not, coaches were just cruel bastards.
And so as we grinded to a halt and Phil instructed us to put on one ski and throw the other one in a tree well, we couldn’t help but muffle a grumbled “you want us to ski down on one ski, why would we do this?” Big mistake. Sensing our escalating mutiny, Phil decided to assert his power over the 15-year olds of which he held all the power. Take that Tiffany, or whatever her name might have been. “Yeah, one ski. And unbuckle all of the buckles on your ski boots”. Damn that Tiffany.
Defiant questions still swirling in our heads, my smartass friend Trevor was not above the challenge of serving as the mouthpiece of our adolescent discontent. “Phil, when in the hell are we ever going to need to know how to ski on one ski with our boots unbuckled?” I’m sure Phil’s diatribe of an answer had something to do with being prepared for all conditions on a racecourse or some shit. I don’t know, I wasn’t listening. I was busy listening to the voice of my 30-year old self.
“Dude, do what he says. One day you will be skiing in Korea. You’ll be on man-made snow. You’ll be on 160 cm rental skis, the edges of which couldn’t cut through a fart. Your rear-entry rental boots will be three sizes too big and the beginner skiers surrounding you will swarm like the locust on the apocalypse. You will thank this man”.
Fast-forward 15 years. I’d been chopping at the bit to go skiing in Korea for over a month now. With reports coming in from home of epic powder days and endless snowstorms, I just wanted to get out on the slopes. At the very least, I needed to humor myself and to possibly satisfy the inner turmoil that stirred in my soul as a result of leaving behind a perfectly good ski season. I had to chase my own “white dragon” (random heroin addict jargon I picked up while watching CNN International – to be clear, I’m addicted to skiing, not heroin).
The day started early, at 5:30 a.m. to be exact - a time I should mention that I had not seen in Korea since my first jet-lagged morning on foreign soil. (Let’s face it, when you have to work at 4:40 p.m., 11:00 a.m. seems like such a logical time to wake up). I met up with a group of Koreans, only one of which I had vague acquaintance with. They directed me onto the correct bus and we were off on our two-hour journey to Muju Resort.
Upon arrival, my new friends helped me walk through the process of renting skis and boots. Having never really done this before, I probably would have needed help doing this were the process to be completed in English. Much to my chagrin, the racks and racks of ski boots all looked the exact same. . .the rear-entry rental jobbers that I consistently mocked back home. The non-skiers out there may have no idea what I’m going on about, but the skiers reading this will get a good chuckle knowing how big of a snob I’ll admit to being. When it came time to pick up my skis, I politely inquired if they might have anything a bit longer, perhaps anything newer than circa 2004. Granted there was a major language barrier to contend with, but I took the confrontational look on the rental guy’s face to mean, “160 cm, deal with it”.
The rental process behind me, I embarked towards the mountain content to be back at what I’ve always known best. Taking to the slopes, it took me a moment to get my skis under my feet. My turns slid from side to side without much grace. My feet shifted around in my boots. A small child nearly lanced me with his ski tips. The “white ribbon of death” took on a new meaning as I actually began to sense death at every turn.
But then the lessons of my youth returned to me. Phil’s goofy laugh through tobacco stained teeth echoed in my ears. Stay centered, keep your shoulders squared to the hill, be strong on your downhill ski. . . ignore the girl sending a text message while simultaneous snowboarding; poorly.
It wasn’t long before I began to get the feel for my short skis with the dull edges. The crumby rear-entry boots that were much too big (in Asia, I know!) were a challenge that was not too big to surmount. I actually began to feel good about my skiing, and more to point, began to enjoy my skiing. I can’t pretend to know good heroin from bad heroin, but I have to imagine that the addict will take either one just the same. I was skiing and I was happy for it.
At the end of the day, every skier wishes to be left with tales to tell of deep face-shots, cliffs dropped and of corduroy shredded beneath their feet. But I defy you to find me a true skier who in the absence of all of that, can’t find joy in the simplicity of making good turns, of feeling the bite of cold air on their faces and of remembering what drew them to the sport in the first place – to feel happier moving quickly along a snowy surface than standing stationary on top of it.
My coach Phil may have taught me a lot of lessons that have been long –since shelved, but there will always be one that remains. Learn to ski well and love doing it. I do love skiing.
I’ll admit it; I’ve never been the world’s biggest basketball fan. I grew up in a state where the Denver Broncos ruled the land (even during seasons such as the current debacle) and one where we were then fortunate enough to be granted an NHL team that won Sir Stanley’s Cup in the first year of the Colorado Avalanche’s existence. Baseball was always fun to watch because it went well with Coors beer and this year’s Rockies-fever carried us all the way to the World Series before we got swept by the Yankees in Red Sox clothing.
Colorado basketball? I’m 31-years old and my 5-year old nephew has seen as many Denver Nugget playoff victories as I have. True, they’ve been steadily improving over the past several years with additions such Carmelo Anthony and Allen Iverson. I’ve taken notice, but not enough to claim true fan status.
And what exactly is a Nugget? I’ve heard the term in reference to a portion of marijuana and also as a butt nugget, and that’s about it. I’d hate to hear from the lawyers at McDonald’s, so I’ll leave that one alone. But wait, there was once gold in them there hills, which is what first drew my family to the state in the 1800s. So kidding aside, I know the name has something to do with gold nuggets, though the team’s play over the years has been anything but golden. Whatever the origin, you have to admit, it was a pretty funny choice for a franchise name. So in that regard, I throw my full support to the Nuggies.
My past ambivalence towards the sport aside, when I got invited to attend a Korean Basketball League game this week, I jumped at the chance to attend. You see, I’ve come to realize that just walking outside my apartment’s door in Korea is a ripe opportunity for entertainment, regardless of the occasion. So I made plans to meet my friend Kathleen and her boyfriend Paul outside of the Daegu Shilay Che Yuk Gwan (at least that’s how it sounds), home of the Daegu Orions. With none us of possessing cell phones, this seemed a rather vague and risky set of meeting directions. That is, until I recalled my email exchange with my current boss about how I would be able to find her when she met me at the airport. “Don’t worry,” she said. “You’ll be the only white person walking out of the airport”. As un-PC as that sounded in an e-mail, I arrived to find she was right on the money. And sure enough, the second Kathleen and Paul walked up to the arena, I spotted them with ease.
As we approached the ticket booth, we realized that the most expensive tickets were US $15, apparently not needing to pay inflated salaries to the likes of A.I , Jay Cutler or Joe Sakic. Ultimately, we settled on the $8 seats and were pleased to find our seats at mid-court about 15 rows up.
The arena itself was not as impressive as the Pepsi Center or Mile High Stadium. It had a kind of high school gym atmosphere, with the matched enthusiasm of a State Championship setting. I was hoping to spot Jimmy Chitwood walking out from beneath the stands, but he didn’t show up. Had he been there, he would have found that the rim of the hoop was exactly 10 feet from the floor, just like in good ole Hickory.
Unlike in Hickory, he would have found several thousand Koreans dancing and beating balloons together while chanting “O-ree-on-say” (Korean for O-ri-ons). I can’t say that Koreans dance only in my presence, but it’s a nice thought. Kick it. . .
When the game got started, Kathleen and Paul explained to me that each team is allotted three foreign players, which seemed to equate to three rather large African American players on each team. Random Fresh Prince of Bel Air reference; wait for it. . .at the start of the game, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the episode of the Fresh Prince where Will joined Carlton’s Bel Air high school basketball team. West Philadelphia, born and raised - the mantra of his wealthy, skill-challenged teammates was to “just pass it to Will”. Surveying the size of the players during warm-up, this looked to be what was in store for the game that was about to be played.
Ethnocentric that I am, I kind of assumed that the American players would dominate this Korean game the way that the 1992 “Dream Team” did during the Olympics of that year. But as I watched the warm-ups, I began to see that these Koreans could actually play. I was a bit saddened that I might not get to see the Carlton dance, but held out hope none-the-less.
Truth-be-told, as the game got going, the Koreans seemed to possess the kind of quick ball-work and intensity that you now see in International play against “America’s best”. Though the Americans provided some highlight worthy dunks, it was clear that the game plans of each team revolved around much more than just “pass it to Will”. It was actually quite refreshing to see these two cultures working together and appreciating each other’s assets and brand of play.
Though the game itself was quite entertaining, the real treat for me was found in watching the scene unfold. Having been here for two months now, I frequently revel in watching Koreans (a strange and foreign culture) just enjoying themselves. I don’t do that enough at home in my own strange culture. I looked around and saw families enjoying their weekend together, couples sharing kisses under the lights and small children finding joy in salty snacks and the company of their friends and family. Ah shucks.
Though a cursory glance around yielded many familiar images to those of any sporting event at home, there was also plenty to take in to remind us that we were, in fact, not in Kansas anymore.
As we sat there and watched the game, being urged to cheer at the prodding of a male cheerleader in a red jacket and white gloves, I commented to Paul that I thought I smelled burnt hair. Wondering what might be producing this peculiar odor, I decided to endeavor to find myself my own salty snack at half-time. Without an endless concourse of choices such as could be found in the Pepsi Center, I approached the only snack bar in the vicinity. Noticing that the smell of burnt hair seemed to be emanating from the distribution of grilled, dried squid, I declared this to be one of those “when in Rome” moments and ordered my own portion.
Now I watch my fair share of culinary travel shows. The host inevitably gets served something wacky and ingests it with phrases like “very interesting”, “the texture is so unique and intriguing” and “this is the epitome of the cultural background of this country’s street food”. Without the burden of cameras trained on my reaction, I struggled through a few bites before proclaiming, “Man, this smells like burnt hair and it tastes even worse”. None-the-less, I gnawed off most of the squid’s tentacles before deciding to give the body mass a try. Big mistake. I’m writing this hours later and I’m still hiccupping up fish bait.
As I sat there gnawing on my squid, I was fortunate enough to be distracted by the half-time entertainment of belly dancers and adorable cheerleaders. The culmination of the festivities came in the form of paper airplanes littering the playing floor. Having witnessed several CU Buffalo marshmallow fights, I first assumed this to be an act of random belligerence. That is until a man took the floor with a microphone and began picking up the folded pieces of paper. Evidently, each sleek airplane was simply the delivery device of kindly notes written to the beloved O-ree-on-seys. The man collecting the numerous pieces of paper then read the hand-written notes to the crowd. The crowd roared with laughter and adoring approval after the reading of each note. I couldn’t help but wonder what these notes would have said to the 5-7 Denver Broncos (the Orions are apparently ranked 10 out of 11 teams). I don’t think they could have been read aloud to a stadium filled with families and young children.
As the second half continued, I began to question my overall ambivalence towards the sport of basketball. It was actually really fun to watch and to be a part of the crowd. Now, I can’t say this will translate to me purchasing season tickets to the Nuggets when I get home, but I will certainly make an attempt to follow more games than I have in the past. Or not, maybe I’m still on a squid high.
Whatever the case, I would certainly make the effort to attend another Orions game. Whether I’ll endeavor to join the cow-costumed fan club remains to be seen. See picture montage below.
Next up on my Korean sporting agenda: a ski trip to Muju Ski Resort with a group of Koreans. I have more than a passing knowledge of the sport of skiing and now know to steer clear of the squid snacks, so stayed tuned. . .
Orions fans dressed in, well, something strange
Every good sports team needs a dude in white gloves and a red blazer to pump up the crowd.
An Emcee, reading the apparently hilarious paper airplane notes
CHARGE!!
As some of you may be aware, I am going to be published in a travel book about Myanmar. While this is a pretty cool thing, the below is an actual editor's note on my piece which will serve as the Epilogue:
"Regarding: “Thinking: ‘why stop with the interesting experiences now,' I agreed to go with him”. Okay, now here is where you’re going to think I’m a total witch. I haven’t found his experiences all that interesting so far. Maybe I would if this was the first essay I’d read, but consider the reader who has read the entire book. Where is the newness and uniqueness in this piece? Where is the aspect that is interesting to more than just the writer? This is the anchor essay, the essay that brings all the others home, and it must stand apart."
So, though I would like to be blogging more about Korea, I've lately been working on trying to make my essay sound more "interesting" to people other than me. For those of you who know me, that is a tall order.
So tonight with my blog, my own little refuge of ME, I thought I would just share some photos with you until I can get my act together and start writing again.
Sadly, my dining room table is the corner of my bed.
I'm sure the first photo is offensive for some reason. If offended, may I make it up to you with a hotdog encased in a donut? I assure you, you're principles will melt away with one taste of the meaty, doughy goodness.
Downtown Daegu. Haven't quite mastered the Korean photo pose yet.
Me, in front of my school, Baek's & Mine. The pig with a bag full of English vocab is our mascot.
As seen on today's hike.
You gotta love living in a city where you can be here within two hours of your door.
I’ve been in Korea for just over a month now. So far, I have shared stories with you about the incredible vibrating work-out belts that are whipping butts into shape over here (or not, I really have no idea what they do), produced video of a park that sang to me like an angel coaxing me to feed more ducks and also theorized that Rodney Dangerfield has set up post in Korea to host a series of “Welcome to the Afterlife” dance parties.
Though these are my stories and I’m sticking to them, they by no means encapsulate my entire time in Korea. I do, in fact, have another raison d’être over here beyond searching out Korea’s quirky little foibles. I am actually an English teacher, which is to say that I am a native English speaker in possession of a college degree; the adequate credentials for landing a job here. By this rationale, I’m now also considering myself a meteorologist. I’ve seen it rain and I’ve seen it snow. I’ve felt the sun on my face and the wind in my hair. And I have a college degree. I predict a heavy deluge of smartass with continuing flurries of sarcasm for the remainder of this blog.
For weeks now, I’ve been coyly dodging the question, “How is the teaching going?” Truth be told, it is a difficult question to answer, because I do not have one answer. I have four classes a day and they are all extremely different. I have some classes that I thoroughly enjoy teaching; classes where the students learn and I actually do a pretty good job of teaching. And then I have classes where I am just amazed that nobody got hurt, sometimes amazed it wasn’t at my own hands. Now, I’m not serious about wanting to harm small children, but I do find myself wondering “how can I simultaneously be a terrific teacher and a terrible teacher, all in the span of two hours separated by a 10-minute break?” Hmmm. . .maybe I should fall back on my meteorology background. There seems to be less guesswork.
Let’s take a look at today shall we?
9:30 a.m. - Woke up thankful for another 10 ½ hours of sleep. It’s Monday, better check the NFL scores that took place while I was sleeping. Super, my fantasy football team is playing like a team whose manager packed up and moved to Asia.
10:15 a.m. - I rode my bike to the gym and then ate some apples with the ladies on the vibrating belts before going to work on the weights. Is there a vet around here, cause these pythons are SICK! (Mental shout out to Reid Greibling in Vail).
11:30 a.m. - Headed home. Stopped off at the corner market to buy some toilet paper. For some reason, in Korea they only seem to sell toilet paper in 24 packs. I mentally did the math: I’ve used one roll in a month, just bought 24 rolls and am planning on being here for another 11 months. Note to self, I better step up my wacky Korean food intake.
12-2:30 p.m. - Drank some coffee, responded to some emails. Made some tuna fish sandwiches (see previous note to self) and then took a shower. No, I didn’t eat the sandwiches in the shower, but it would have been entirely possible using the hand-held mechanism that controls what gets wet (not much, including me).
3:00 p.m. - Rode my bike to school dodging innumerable moving objects on the city sidewalks. Seriously, if a giant monkey appeared out of nowhere and started rolling barrels at me, it would not faze me at this point.
3:30-4:40 p.m. - Arrived at school and read through the notes I write down at the end of each class. Crap, today is Monday. Yep, somebody’s got a case of the Monday’s. No, not because it’s the first day of the workweek, but because I know that two of today’s classes would be better served by a referee than a teacher. On the upside, my last class gives me something to look forward to at the end of the day.
4:40 p.m. - I taught my E4 class. This is a higher level (but young) class. These guys get a little rowdy, but come right back to me once I need them to focus. I get by without incident. I can’t say these guys left class quoting Yeats, and if they did, it certainly wasn’t because of anything I said. I’d like to think that they did learn a little something about Ranger Day and how he saved a baby eagle.
5:50 p.m. - Deep breath. Time for my E3 class filled with 16 pre-pubescent, seemingly Red Bull-infused poster children for ADD. During my first week of non-trained teaching, I assumed dismissing a little horseplay as kids being kids would make me the fun, cool teacher. Fast-forward one month and I now realize this was the equivalent of chumming a school of piranhas and expecting them to go vegetarian at a later command. Needless to say, I’ve spent the last several weeks trying to restore some order and authority in this classroom. Today, I decided the piranhas would be switching to a kelp diet. I am no longer the “fun, cool teacher”, but have come to realize that was never in my job description. And I used to be such a nice guy.
7:00 p.m. - The good old one-two punch. I head to my C1 class and struggle to understand why this class (who are in theory at the same level as my other C1 classes on different days) look at me like I’m trying to teach them nuclear physics in an Algebra class. And those are the students who actually choose to look at me. I find it hard to blame these kids for their apathy, as it is 7 p.m. and they’ve been at school since 8 a.m. I could go into more detail on the issues of this class, but I’ve run out of fun analogies.
7:45 p.m. - Ah, my Monday vacation! Though Monday’s are tough for the above reasons, I can always look forward to coming to this C2 class. Every student in the class is quite likeable, participates though the whole class and jokes around with me as we get down to the business of learning English. Now this is what I thought teaching would be like.
8:30 p.m. - Whew, rough day. Four hours of work and I’m spent! Time to pedal myself home for a Korean-brewed Budweiser. That’s if I manage to dodge all of the darkened figures that spring out of alleyways, cartwheel out of buses and stumble out of restaurants. Seriously, I think ninjas are trying to kill me. You think I’m kidding, but I’m not.
Addendum: I’ve been watching a lot of Dr. Phil lately on AFN (Armed Forces Network) and he has taught me to never go to bed mad. So I’m posting this on Tuesday. Incidentally, I had a great day at school today.
Some say that Rodney Dangerfield is dead. This is probably true. But I swear to you that the other day as I entered Duryu Park in Daegu, I saw the back of his multi-colored sweater walking in the other direction with his slick Italian caddy lugging his bag alongside him.
Now I can't promise you that it was actually him; it was kind of a hazy day, and well, Koreans do have a flare for wearing flamboyant colors themselves. But as I strolled through the park and began to take in the scene, I now know with certainty that Dangerfield is alive and well. . .and living in Korea. I've always dismissed people as kooks who claim that they saw Elvis eating Doritos at a pitch n' putt in Akron, or those who take advice from the Jesus in their corn tortilla, so perhaps they better warm up my jumpsuit at the asylum too - because I have no other way to explain what I saw.
Backing up just a bit, I had decided that it was time for me to get out of my somewhat familiar neighborhood in Daegu and to see a little more of the city I now call home. So with a vague description of how to get there, I hopped on a bus to Duryu Park, just to catch a glimpse of a Sunday afternoon in Korea. With some amazement, I managed to get on the right bus and found my way to the park.
It was about the time that I rounded a corner and headed into the park that the back of Mr. Dangerfield ambled away into a crowd of men sitting on the ground playing Chinese checkers. The man was gone and his bright red golf bag was nowhere to be seen, but his words remained. . ."So what? So, let's dance!".
And dance they did. Rodney would have been so proud.
As I entered the park, I first heard the music. Then I saw the crowds. And then I saw something I frankly had never seen before. . .an old person dance party. At first, just vaguely interested, I wandered over to have a closer look. Now intrigued, the moves became hypnotic and I soon found myself joining the throngs of people surrounding the jubulent geriatrics. Now obsessed, I wanted to join in. Honestly, I think I could have dazzled them with my moves. But this was their party and a random foreigner with even crappier dance moves might have caused a confrontation. So I was content to sit back and watch the magic unfold.
The first dance jam that I encountered, I wrote off as an isolated case of random 70-year olds needing to get their funk on. Though I had the desire to stay and watch for hours, I felt compelled to move on. Walking another 30 feet down the path and around a corner I began to hear music again. Couldn't be. Oh yes, it is. Another old person dance party! Now, I don't know if this group of dashing Gene Kelly's were in direct sight of the other group, but I was internally hoping that I had wandered into a dance-off, straight up Zoolander style.
I remember a Pepsi ad campaign from the mid-80's where a bunch of grumpy old people would magically be transformed into a racous bunch of teenagers by swilling down the company's sugary, caffeinated, carbonated beverage. Classic, and not Coke classic. It's up to debate whether these four gents had just come off an all-night Pepsi bender, but if that were true, I'd be selling this blog to Pepsi and would drinking nothing but that delicious soda pop myself as I prepare to enter my golden years.
The temptation in this video is to watch the magical moves of the guy in the blue shirt and it is well worth doing. But I do urge you to take a second or third view and watch the guys in the back. I myself sat and watched this go on for about 30 minutes in person and have subsequently watched this video umpteen times and I still crack up. In fact, if you do not find enjoyment in this, then perhaps you and I should stop being friends.
My day at the park entailed a lot more than watching these beautiful human beings expressing themselves through dance and loud music, but I feel at this point it would pale in comparison to this highlight. I assure you that if Judge Smails had happened to be anywhere in Duryu Park on this day, he would have been FURIOUS!