The 19th of June was the Materials Engineering athletic day. All of the graduate students and a few profs took the day off work to get together and play all day. Typing these words still seem surreal, even though I witnessed it... Koreans taking time off work...
Before we moved onto the first official game of the day, a couple of us starting throwing tennis ball around, another guy had a bat so we had a little informal game of baseball going. After my basketball debacle from a few weeks ago I actually impressed a few people as my first hit was a powerful line-drive which spanned the width of the soccer field.
We started the day off with a game of soccer baseball. I was told that this was a game for the girls, so their participation was promoted. After the game though I didn't see any of the girls participate for the rest of the day.
The glory I had attained on the baseball field was short lived as the first game of the day was basketball. I got picked right away by someone who obviously didn't see me play the last time and I got thrown in with the top players. This racial profiling is disturbing. And again I made a complete fool of myself. I hit my first shot, a nice lay-up, which made me dangerously overconfident and I don't think I made another shot after that.
I played the first and third quarters and my team got trounced in each of them. I wonder why. I didn't stick around for the fourth quarter as a couple of the guys had moved back to the soccer field and were throwing the ball around again. They were hitting pop-flies to each other, so I took a few rounds at bat. This time we were using a real baseball and were pitching with a little bit of speed. Unfortunately, we only had a little, hallowed aluminium bat. By the time we were finished, the poor thing was no longer round. One hit in particular put a nice little dent in the bat, that was a strange feeling.
We then moved over to what I thought was a volleyball court except that the net was only waist high. On the court we played a Korean game which is like a cross between soccer and volleyball. It's not the intense soccer-volleyball that is played on the beaches of Brazil, we could only use our legs and head, but the ball could bounce once, in the court, before we could play it. Just like volleyball you had 3 touches before you had to send it over (the ball could bounce in the court between each touch). I wasn't horrendous, but I certainly prefer playing volleyball.
After the soccer-volleyball was the main event, a full game of soccer. The sides were picked and before I could even ask where I was to play they told me to go be the keeper. I guess they had figured me out. I'm not sure how they picked the teams, but the opposite side seemed to be stacked. We had a terrible defence and our offence was worse. That resulted in me getting lot of shots. My first shot came on a two on run break, the ball was crossed and I dove to stop the shot. The problem here is not that I let them score, but that we are playing on a hard dirt field, not grass, my arm is still a little scraped weeks later. In the end I let in 3 goals in the half but stopped twice as many shots. Not too shabby.
I played defence and midfield in the second half as my teammates wanted to take a breather in nets. My presence on the field had no impact on the outcome as our team was simply outmatched. The only event of importance was when I attempted to tackle a player, clipped his foot and went tumbling to the hard dirt. I hit my knee quite hard but got up and walked it off. I thought I would be fine until I looked down and saw that my leg covered in blood. I quickly found a sub, cleaned the dirt from the wound in the bathroom and then went to the medical clinic in the Student Union Building (adjacent to the soccer field). My knee and most of my leg was scraped, but there weren't any big cuts, I just needed to get a bit of gauze and I would be on my way. Instead the lady insisted on cleaning the cut with what I can only imagine was acid and then covered my knee with the most pathetic wrapping I'd ever seen. In the end I was no worse for wear but my playing day was over.
Before we moved onto the first official game of the day, a couple of us starting throwing tennis ball around, another guy had a bat so we had a little informal game of baseball going. After my basketball debacle from a few weeks ago I actually impressed a few people as my first hit was a powerful line-drive which spanned the width of the soccer field.
We started the day off with a game of soccer baseball. I was told that this was a game for the girls, so their participation was promoted. After the game though I didn't see any of the girls participate for the rest of the day.
The glory I had attained on the baseball field was short lived as the first game of the day was basketball. I got picked right away by someone who obviously didn't see me play the last time and I got thrown in with the top players. This racial profiling is disturbing. And again I made a complete fool of myself. I hit my first shot, a nice lay-up, which made me dangerously overconfident and I don't think I made another shot after that.
I played the first and third quarters and my team got trounced in each of them. I wonder why. I didn't stick around for the fourth quarter as a couple of the guys had moved back to the soccer field and were throwing the ball around again. They were hitting pop-flies to each other, so I took a few rounds at bat. This time we were using a real baseball and were pitching with a little bit of speed. Unfortunately, we only had a little, hallowed aluminium bat. By the time we were finished, the poor thing was no longer round. One hit in particular put a nice little dent in the bat, that was a strange feeling.
We then moved over to what I thought was a volleyball court except that the net was only waist high. On the court we played a Korean game which is like a cross between soccer and volleyball. It's not the intense soccer-volleyball that is played on the beaches of Brazil, we could only use our legs and head, but the ball could bounce once, in the court, before we could play it. Just like volleyball you had 3 touches before you had to send it over (the ball could bounce in the court between each touch). I wasn't horrendous, but I certainly prefer playing volleyball.
After the soccer-volleyball was the main event, a full game of soccer. The sides were picked and before I could even ask where I was to play they told me to go be the keeper. I guess they had figured me out. I'm not sure how they picked the teams, but the opposite side seemed to be stacked. We had a terrible defence and our offence was worse. That resulted in me getting lot of shots. My first shot came on a two on run break, the ball was crossed and I dove to stop the shot. The problem here is not that I let them score, but that we are playing on a hard dirt field, not grass, my arm is still a little scraped weeks later. In the end I let in 3 goals in the half but stopped twice as many shots. Not too shabby.
I played defence and midfield in the second half as my teammates wanted to take a breather in nets. My presence on the field had no impact on the outcome as our team was simply outmatched. The only event of importance was when I attempted to tackle a player, clipped his foot and went tumbling to the hard dirt. I hit my knee quite hard but got up and walked it off. I thought I would be fine until I looked down and saw that my leg covered in blood. I quickly found a sub, cleaned the dirt from the wound in the bathroom and then went to the medical clinic in the Student Union Building (adjacent to the soccer field). My knee and most of my leg was scraped, but there weren't any big cuts, I just needed to get a bit of gauze and I would be on my way. Instead the lady insisted on cleaning the cut with what I can only imagine was acid and then covered my knee with the most pathetic wrapping I'd ever seen. In the end I was no worse for wear but my playing day was over.
After the soccer game we were to head out to Gireum for a dinner provided by the professors. As I headed back to my lab to get my stuff I saw something that just might convince me to never leave Korea. This beast was parked outside of the engineering building. If I could ride a four-wheeler to school everyday, there's not way I'm every leaving this place. Unfortunately, I've been told that it can only be driven on campus, so I'm still in limbo about the whole "staying here forever" thing.
The dinner turned out to be more of a banquet for the graduate students. The professor who organised the dinner said that cooperation amongst the labs is important and that the banquet was a chance for everyone to get to know each other. To accelerate the process each lab had to go to the front of the room and present themselves and then at least one person person from the lab had to give a little performance. Certain labs sang a song, others danced. One guy sang a song to each professor (something along the lines of "Your so beautiful, to me...") and capped it with a shot with each prof. One guy chugged a bottle of soju (he was in pretty rough shape after that). This concerned me, because we're only 3 in my lab. Yong-Mu is not terribly expressive and I wasn't too sure about Yong-Su as well. This left me in a tight spot. As lab after lab was called up I just knew that they were going to ask me to sing. I just knew it. I was the only foreigner there, my colleagues weren't likely to bail me out. The writing was on the wall. I was starting to sweat. What was I to sing? I'd only had a beer or two and was not in a good state to start singing. I figured I should do something cultural. Something Canadian... but what? And then I had it. Brilliant. Of course I was still hoping that I would not have to subject the crowed to my voice, but at least I was prepared.
Finally, my lab was called up. After we each introduced ourselves and our research, Yong-Mu handed the mic back to me with a look on his face that read "It sucks to be you man." I hesitated and looked towards Yong-Su for deliverance, but when everyone started to chant my name I knew that my fate had been sealed.
"Ok. Ok. I'll sing you a song," I said, as my amplified voice echoed ominously throughout the room. "As you know I am from Canada, but I am also a French-Canadian. In the French culture we have traditional songs that are called des chansons à répondre. For these songs I need the audience to participate. So I need everyone on the table to my right and the first half of the middle table to form one group and the rest of the middle table and the left table to form a second group. Now when I point to the first group I need you to yell our 'Oui! Oui! Oui!' which means 'Yes! Yes! Yes!' in French. When I point to the second group I need you to yell out 'Non! Non! Non!" which means 'No! No! No!' in French. Ok, so let's give this a dry run"
"we. we. we."
"noun. noun. noun"
"C'mon this is a French song! You need to use a little more vigour."
"We! We! Wee!"
"Noun! Noun! Noun!"
"Good enough," I thought to myself.
I steadied myself. Took a deep breath and then threw myself into two verses of Les chevaliers de la table ronde. I had to help them out with the first two rounds of Oui. Oui. Oui. and Non. Non. Non. but by the second verse they pretty much had the hang of it (though without Benoît's enthusiasm).
The two verses complete, I put the microphone down and stumbled back to my seat. My heart was pounding, I hadn't felt like that since the last time I performed at Sam-en-Scène. The feeling was not quite as good as it was mixed with a very healthy dose of embarrassment. Fortunately, no one could understand what I sang and for all they know traditional French-Canadian songs could be sung horribly off key on purpose. At least that's what I hope they think. Looking back though I think it went relatively well, I still have people saying "Hey Andrew. Oui! Oui! Oui!" weeks later.
After the presentations we settled down to our meal. The meal consisted of big slices of beef which were cooked over a little grill in front of us. The pieces of meat were then cut, with scissors, into little chunks which we then ate by either dipping in a sauce or placing on a leaf of lettuce with garlic, kimchi and various sauces before consuming. It was amazing. I still think that tak kalbi is my favourite Korean food, but this is a close second.
We finished up at the restaurant around 10pm and while a few of my friends returned to the university to do some more work, a bunch of us finished the night off at a nearby bar. Of course I left early to make it back by midnight. Lovely.
The dinner turned out to be more of a banquet for the graduate students. The professor who organised the dinner said that cooperation amongst the labs is important and that the banquet was a chance for everyone to get to know each other. To accelerate the process each lab had to go to the front of the room and present themselves and then at least one person person from the lab had to give a little performance. Certain labs sang a song, others danced. One guy sang a song to each professor (something along the lines of "Your so beautiful, to me...") and capped it with a shot with each prof. One guy chugged a bottle of soju (he was in pretty rough shape after that). This concerned me, because we're only 3 in my lab. Yong-Mu is not terribly expressive and I wasn't too sure about Yong-Su as well. This left me in a tight spot. As lab after lab was called up I just knew that they were going to ask me to sing. I just knew it. I was the only foreigner there, my colleagues weren't likely to bail me out. The writing was on the wall. I was starting to sweat. What was I to sing? I'd only had a beer or two and was not in a good state to start singing. I figured I should do something cultural. Something Canadian... but what? And then I had it. Brilliant. Of course I was still hoping that I would not have to subject the crowed to my voice, but at least I was prepared.
Finally, my lab was called up. After we each introduced ourselves and our research, Yong-Mu handed the mic back to me with a look on his face that read "It sucks to be you man." I hesitated and looked towards Yong-Su for deliverance, but when everyone started to chant my name I knew that my fate had been sealed.
"Ok. Ok. I'll sing you a song," I said, as my amplified voice echoed ominously throughout the room. "As you know I am from Canada, but I am also a French-Canadian. In the French culture we have traditional songs that are called des chansons à répondre. For these songs I need the audience to participate. So I need everyone on the table to my right and the first half of the middle table to form one group and the rest of the middle table and the left table to form a second group. Now when I point to the first group I need you to yell our 'Oui! Oui! Oui!' which means 'Yes! Yes! Yes!' in French. When I point to the second group I need you to yell out 'Non! Non! Non!" which means 'No! No! No!' in French. Ok, so let's give this a dry run"
"we. we. we."
"noun. noun. noun"
"C'mon this is a French song! You need to use a little more vigour."
"We! We! Wee!"
"Noun! Noun! Noun!"
"Good enough," I thought to myself.
I steadied myself. Took a deep breath and then threw myself into two verses of Les chevaliers de la table ronde. I had to help them out with the first two rounds of Oui. Oui. Oui. and Non. Non. Non. but by the second verse they pretty much had the hang of it (though without Benoît's enthusiasm).
The two verses complete, I put the microphone down and stumbled back to my seat. My heart was pounding, I hadn't felt like that since the last time I performed at Sam-en-Scène. The feeling was not quite as good as it was mixed with a very healthy dose of embarrassment. Fortunately, no one could understand what I sang and for all they know traditional French-Canadian songs could be sung horribly off key on purpose. At least that's what I hope they think. Looking back though I think it went relatively well, I still have people saying "Hey Andrew. Oui! Oui! Oui!" weeks later.
After the presentations we settled down to our meal. The meal consisted of big slices of beef which were cooked over a little grill in front of us. The pieces of meat were then cut, with scissors, into little chunks which we then ate by either dipping in a sauce or placing on a leaf of lettuce with garlic, kimchi and various sauces before consuming. It was amazing. I still think that tak kalbi is my favourite Korean food, but this is a close second.
We finished up at the restaurant around 10pm and while a few of my friends returned to the university to do some more work, a bunch of us finished the night off at a nearby bar. Of course I left early to make it back by midnight. Lovely.
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