Downtown Daegu: Teaching Americans A Real Sport...

I missed my glove.

I never expected it to be this hard, but little had I realised how much I enjoyed wearing a solitary glove. Korea had opened my heart to a new experience and I was now faced with the dilemma of spending every day in the local seafood restaurant repeatedly ordering shrimp in order to get the customary white shrimping glove or go cold turkey.

Even the thought of removing gloves totally from my life sent a cold shiver down my spine. I had taken a glimpse into a new world and I liked it. But what to do? I could of course order some shrimp and then flee the restaurant laughing manically and take the glove with me. I could wear it to school. Would the school have an issue with a man who likes to wear a glove? Hmmm....our dress code says "Professional". Surely a sparkly glove was not intrinsically linked to being an "Amateur".

The children might be a little confused. But then by the end of most of my lessons they look fairly confused anyway. If there were awkward questions I could just say I had suffered third degree burns in a horrendous weekend mishap and now had the hand of a charred corpse.

No, this was ridiculous. I needed to put it out of my mind and so I did.

And then the invitation arrived...

"Pub Golf this Saturday in Downtown Daegu, golfing attire is a must, create a team and see you there".

A thrill of excitement coursed through my veins and for once it wasn't at the prospect of drinking myself into a drooling wreck. Oh I would indeed be in golfing attire, I already owned trousers, a polo shirt and trainers so now all I needed was a sun visor and.....

A FUCKING GLOVE.

Who said there was no God?

I skipped towards the shops, briefly passing a pudgy faced Korean lady with hair down to her knees! Down to her KNEES! She looked like the illegitimate love child of Chairman Mao and Cousin Itt. But I wouldn't let her preposterous appearance distract me a moment longer. I found two gloves and two visors at Daegu's reasonably priced supermarket "Home Plus". That was me and Dubs kitted out.

Dubs being American had no idea what pub golf was and neither did most of my fellow team mates who were also mainly American. I explained quickly that every bar is a hole and every drink has a par. A pint is par four; neck it in one and you are one under par, do it in five gulps and you are one over etc.

They got it. They liked it and they thanked me for my concise yet accurate description.

And we were off. The glove gripped a glass of alcohol perfectly, and due to my wildly unhealthy lifestyle over the past decade I was in perfect fighting condition for this type of "sport".

I had two American girls on our team, Miss Dreads (cunningly named after her hairstyle) and Emily. They put in a valiant effort but struggled on some holes.
I wanted to go with a xenophobic slant and blame it on their nationality, but then Miss Dreads' fiance Mountain (he wanted a nickname and chose this for no reason) and Dubs were having no such troubles, so I had to reject the xenephobia and embrace my long lost friend misogyny.

Stupid women, having trouble downing entire pints in one go? And to think we gave you the vote.

I was flying, me and the glove felt untouchable, no wonder Tiger Woods thought he could get away with anything. I could barely blame the man with my new insights into his world. He has to dress like this for a living! It's enough to drag anyone from the straight and narrow.

As the final drinks were drained, the score cards were added, a ripple of anticipation spread across the fifty or so assembled golfers and the results came in. Our team had won. We celebrated with a round of drinks and myself and the only other Brit on our team (a cheerful chap named Yatesy) roared with pride at our respective perfect scores of 18 Under Par.

I wandered home in a warm glow of contentment. For the first time in my life, I had tasted real success and it tasted like booze. I had found my calling and began to incessantly harrass the event organiser to hasten forward another Pub Golf night.

I folded up the glove and thanked it for the part it had played. And as I slipped off into a blissful sleep, I thought once more of the pudgy faced woman and her stupidly long hair...I bet she wished she could have seen me drinking tonight.

Until next time, this was Monkey Roberts.

Eating in Korea...

I have decided to write about various things I have eaten, mainly because I have done nothing of interest or note in the past two weeks that warrants a blog. I am supposed to be updating this pesky thing twice a week, but such is my laziness that I barely manage to produce a paragraphs worth of activity in a seven day period.

A few things. Never bother ordering a steak in Korea. Koreans are pretty good at cooking Korean food, but the majority of the western style places are woeful. I went to a steak house in my first week here and got a meal that would barely pass the grade as a Red Cross handout in a war torn, third world nation.

However, Korean food is pretty cheap and generally I like it. The main side dish that comes with everything is Kimchi. Fermented cabbage that everyone I know loves. I don't love it. In fact I'd say I rather dislike it. It tastes like...erm...cabbage that has fermented a bit.

Now feast your eyes upon this local dish...



The soup looks like something that has just been pumped out of the local sewage works, but surprisingly it does not taste bad at all. In fact it doesn't really taste. But it is cheap and it does have bits of unidentifable, chewy meat floating in it, so I'm a regular buyer.

The bulk of eating out involves ordering meat and cooking it on a grill that sits in the middle of the table. Galbi is pork, and my current favourite is Galmagi which means seagull. Some Koreans have told me it is actually seagull and others tell me it is actually pork or beef (they don't seem to know). But I prefer to think that it is seagull as I hate seagulls and feel that I am getting a long overdue revenge on their kind.

My complete lack of Korean can be interesting in restaurants with no pictures and obviously no English. I ordered a starter that turned out to be raspberry wine. Best starter I've ever had.

I went to a seafood restaurant with Little Spoon and the waiter brought us each one white glove. I've never been told to dress like Michael Jackson to eat, but I'm open to new experiences so the glove went on. We had apparently ordered shrimp and apparently you wear one white glove to eat shrimp. The food was good and the glove was outstanding. In fact I am tempted to take a glove with me to all restaurants from this day on.

I have yet to eat dog, but I have eaten pigs intestines, fish head soup and of course those bastard seagulls.
Now despite not being a fan of Kimchi, it is not the most unusual side dish. That honour goes to Beondegi, which are silk worm larvae that are deep fried. And here they are...



It is difficult to describe their flavour, but I will try. Fucking vile. They taste exactly as I imagined a silk worm larvae to taste and believe me that has been something I have thought about many a time over the years.



I would have spat the rancid little things into my hand, but I didn't want to stain my glove.

In summary; seagull, raspberry wine and gloves are good. Larvae, Steaks and Kimchi are bad. Most westerners disagree with my views about Kimchi but then again most of those people don't like to wear a single, sparkly glove when eating, so their opinion is not to be trusted.

Teaching in Korea: New Teachers, Same Old Kids...

It was always going to happen. Three of our teachers left our school. I knew it was going to happen since the day I was told that in a couple of months time the twelve month contract for three of our teachers ended and that they would be leaving.

So Stacy, Stanley and Eddie departed and we were assured that three new teachers would be joining our dwindling band to ensure we were not overloaded with work.

I have come to be a little skeptical of assurances at our school and sure enough on the day two new teachers arrived there was something amiss. There was only one. Nobody would tell us what had happened to the guy who passed training and was due to arrive, but he was taken to one side and sent home. I discussed this with the other teachers and agreed that he probably had HIV.

We then heard that a third teacher would arrive in a few weeks. A few days later it was confirmed that he had actually failed his Criminal Background Check and would not be coming. Great. Nobody told us what his crime was, but I'm going to presume it had something to do with HIV.

So we are short of two teachers, and I have a host of new classes, who make last semesters seem fantastic. Sullen fifteen year olds everywhere who neither speak nor have any desire to be there. And then at the other extreme I have a bunch of hyperactive midgets who cry if they drop their pencil, cry if I don't pick them to read first and cry if I say "Well done" with too much volume.

I do have one good student though, she is attentive, works hard and speaks well. However her idea of what a teacher/student conversation should be is a little out of the ordinary.

Good Student: "Teacher do you have a girlfriend?"

Me: "Not at the moment, now look at your book..."

Good Student: "How many girlfriends you had?"

Me: "I'm not answering that."

Good Student: "Oh ten? You've had ten?"

Me: "What? I never said a number, I'm not answering."

Good Student: "Oh wow, more than ten I think. Teacher what did you do before you were teacher?"

Me: "I worked in wine"

Good Student: "Oh wow, I love wine!"

Eventually I managed to drag her away from the fascinating topic of ex girlfriends and wine, but at the end of the lesson she has an interesting business proposal for me.

Good Student: "Teacher, we go to shop and you buy me wine, yes?"

Me: "No, I'm not buying you wine".

Good Student: "Why? Come on we can go now, you know the good wines, pick for me and buy for present."

Me: "No, you are fourteen and I would lose my job, wait until you are older to have wine."

She purses her lips and looks at me as if I am a disobedient child.

Good Student: "Teacher...I can wear different clothes."

Well why didn't you say so? Here I was saying I wouldn't buy you alcohol like a miserable old twat, and all along you were prepared to wear different clothes? That changes everything. You nip home and change out of that Mickey Mouse T-Shirt and into, I don't know a Donald Duck dress and I'll meet you at the supermarket. A bottle of Chateau Margaux okay for you? Perhaps you'd like a cigar and some cognac to finish off the evening?

The next lesson she presented me with a book mark she had bought me. Hardly covered the cost of all the champagne and cocaine I had bought her, but to be fair she's probably not made of money being fourteen and all.