First friends, first students

1) (a little belated)

En route to sanity, one of many first priorities: find (English speaking) friends quickly. En route to reality, one of many first realizations: this may take awhile. Temporary solution? First friends!

Last week Sam and I took a jaunt to the much discussed "Dragon Bar." Dragon Bar is the so-described home away from home for English teachers in the Nowon-Gu. In fact, it's pretty much our only (expatty) watering hole within a 20-minute subway ride. So in hopes of making our first friends in Seoul, the Dragon Bar seemed like a logical conclusion.

And now you're in our mindset.

Up the stairs and around the bend, Sam and I crawl into Dragon Bar. It's, much to our delight, a bar-bar, complete with a wooden(ish) bar and a few lounge-y tables. Korean bars, as we soon discover, function more like restaurants than inebriation stations. In a Korean bar, you have to order "bar food," which basically means ordering a full meal. If you just want a drink, it's either a "Western Bar" or your bedroom (or for many people, the street corner with open container).

So back to the point. We are THRILLED to be at a bar-bar. We are not as thrilled that this so-called "expat bar" is currently only full of Koreans and us. But this doesn't deter us: Two Cass's (a cheap Korean standard) please!

We chat at the edge of the bar, quietly and self-consciously in English. There are a few Korean women to our left and two young Korean men to our right. The juke box begins playing Green Day, and then suddenly, to my right, the smiling Korean man sings the perfectly unaccented lyrics to "Basket Case." This takes Sam and I a little off-guard, so we turn wide-eyed to gawk at our neighbor, the newfound rockstar of the bar.

After a few awkward smiles and pauses, he turns to introduce himself and offer Sam and I some of his Absolute. We quickly learn two things: Koreans LOVE to be good bar hosts (as in pouring a never-ending amount of alcohol into your glass), and his non-singing English vocabulary is composed of approximately 15 words.

Here's where it gets fun. Because of our unfortunate disability at communication, my friend, the rockstar, feels desperately compelled to let me know that he likes me. A lot. From here on out, please refer to me only as your "first friend." That's me. I am now and forever always going to be cosmically connected to this man whose name I don't know because he proclaimed, no less that three dozen times (this is not an exaggeration) "YOU ARE MY FIRST FRIEND."

Please be awed by the list of kick-backs first friends receive in Korea:

A) A LOT of affection. Physical and verbal splatter included.

B) Free half-bottles of Absolute Vodka.

C) Delicious fruit plates from behind the bar.

D) Free neck massages. And because no one can explain in the other's tongue what is going on, a lot of awkward hovering before the hands finally settle on the other's neck.

E) Leg massages.

F) And of course, the security of knowing that I became this man's first friend before Sam was ever in his picture. My first friend will always remind Sam (as he did) that I am better.

Before you become alarmed by this strange ritual of first friends, let me clarify: Korean mean, ALL Korean men, perhaps even straights more than gays, love to share physical intimacy. Groups of thuggish looking boys walk down the streets holding hands. Grown men curl into each other's arms when drunk. And little schoolboys frolic down the street arm-in-arm, inseparable and impenetrable to our Western expressions of homophobia.

To make a long story short, my dear, dear first friend continued drinking with me until he eventually fell over in his chair. A girl came over and chuckled, and in broken English, mimed that this was her ex-boyfriend from many years ago. When he began to vomi dirtectly onto the floor beside me, his real first friend took him away. I said my adieus as he vomited in the toilet stall, and he smiled sadly as I walked out the bathroom door.

End of story. Sorry for all the tense switching. I'm too exhausted to talk about my first students. That will come soon. Promise.

2) to be continued