Been Bad or Good

(swag)

It was Christmas this week, and not even Korea is completely oblivious to that. Like many Western holidays, it was celebrated at the school. Also much like the last western 'holiday' (read: Halloween) I was obliged to dress up like a retard for this one, too. In fact, this time it's safe to say I was obligated to.

In order to fend off the inevitable event that the kids would recognize me from earlier that morning, we positioned the hat and beard strategically, hiding my whole damn face - albeit at the expense of my eyesight and proper breathing. A surprising number of kids didn't quite catch on, but a number of the older kids called me out on my shoes, recognizing that wears the same skate shoes as Peter Teacher. It was cute that after it was all over, some of my own students were excited telling me how Santa came while I was away.

After work, the grownup had our own party. Me, Scott, and Chris started the party a little early, grabbing a few drinks in the bland hours after work but before the party. After the small headstart we went to Outback Steakhouse and met with the rest of the faculty.

I was seated across from the nice new teacher Natalie (good) and the new manager of the school who doesn't speak any English and may or may not hate all foreigners (less good). But dinner was delish and we drew tickets for prizes and most of us won cookies and I gave mine away. After that, Chris, Scott, Bora, Natalie, Sue, and I headed out for some drinks (largely to ease Chris' pain over not winning that prized air purifier, I figure). That was a great chance to meet the two new Korean teachers at work, plus what's a Christmas party if it ends after the couple of drinks that accompany supper?

When I next heard from Chris, it turns out he'd left his apartment key at work, and when he got home, he ended up sleeping in the hallway outside his door. He had to teach at 10 the next morning. I'm just really glad my apartment has a keypad.

Saturday night me and Cahill went drinking and ended up at (you guessed it) Hongdae. We met up with Adrian and went to a red/white-themed Christmas club party. The music wasn't terrible, and you could get eggnog drinks at the bar, and there was a Santa hat floating around from head to head, so all was happy and bright.

The next day (that being Christmas eve) me and Cahill went to the CoEX mall and I had my first tinge of real Christmas spirit, fueled by the most familiar festive sight I know: a crowded mall. There was something about pushing and shoving and lights and consuming that kinda put visions of sugarplums in my wallet. It even enticed me to buy a couple of presents for myself...

Not that I needed to augment my present haul, as such. I got a fine haul sent from the homsestead. Among the swag was a plethora of Christmas-themed food items, as well as a few nice new shirts, some DVDs, magazines, and other such slices of home. The most clever gift was a collection of Star Wars Christmas ornaments; I really wish I had a tree that wasn't drawn on my cupboard on which to hang them.

The childish indulgences I purchased for included a remote-controlled helicopter (small, hard-to-control fun) and "I Am 8-Bit" - a book of art based on classic video games. They're both more than cool enough for me to have bought them for myself without the flimsy religious occasion as an excuse.

I got a few little gift from students, along with some cards - some of which are quite elaborate. Some of the Christmas cards I've seen here in Korea aren't like anything I've seen before; multi-layered pop-up book cardboard festive dioramas with writing on the back. I swear some of the card envelopes for the presents 'Santa' handed the kids were thicker than the gifts themselves.

Of course, toys and books and food and clothes weren't the only presents I got for Christmas. I also got the nastiest bout of cold I've had in Korea, along with an ear infection. It all lead me to my first visit to a Korean doctor, which was relatively painless, albeit bizarre. See, when he looked into my ears, nose and throat (he was an ENT, after all) instead of using a score, he used tiny fibre-optic cameras and then displayed the images onscreen to decipher in front of me. After years of hearing about it, I finally know what the chronic scarring of my tympanic membrane looks like. This uninsured visit to a private medical specialist cost less than $4.00. Korea is cheap.

After it was all said and done, I got my prescription, which was conveniently doled into little easy dosage packages. They're convenient, but they also remind me of the random bags of kills that teenagers used to get from friends on after-school specials. Suffice it to say that whateverthefuck these are, they're downers, kids. I've been sleeping like a madman. Assuming it's some sort of really lazy madman who sleeps a lot.

In honour of the Christmas spirit this week, I'm going to give Korea a break for a change, and not make fun of it in my closing picture. Instead, here are two of my favourite images from my new art book "I Am 8-Bit". They are titled "An Old Reflection" and "Duck Hunter S. Thompson", respectively. They are also packaged together here, as their inspirations were two decades ago.



See you next year.