First, whatever we did had to revolve around or at least liberally highlight our incredibly self. . .um, 'aware,' CEO, Mr. Song. Second, we had to make great mention of how wonderful of a company DYB is. Third, song and dance are always appreciated; the more involvement the better. Fourth, key concepts to include are 'teamwork' and 'family.'
With this information in mind, I set to work Thursday afternoon devising a fail-proof performance, as the majority of my students decided that they need not show up for academy after having just finished taking a dozen tests in four days. . .understandable!
As my previously mentioned Beatles>Marley>Counting Crows>Christmas Carol medley was shot down, I decided to refine it a bit, eventually whittling my choices down to two songs. Both were covers but with inventive 're-wording' to reflect that which Mr. Song holds so dear to his heart: himself, and DYB, also known as Choisun.
During the first break Nate caught up with me in the preliminary stages of my re-writing. He quickly looked over my work and suggested that my first option, 'No Hogwan, No Cry,' sounded a bit too depressing and even possibly anti-DYB. . .
No hogwan no cry (x4)
Say, say, I remember when we used to teach
Say, say, I remember when we used to teach
In a Choison acadmey in Junggye
Obba, observing 'de people walk
Across the street at Eunag sa-gori
Good teacha's we had
Oh, good teacha's we've lost
A-long da' way, ay, ay, ayyy
Obba, observing 'de people walk
Across the street at Eunag sa-gori
Good teacha's we had
Oh, good teacha's we've lost
A-long da' way, ay, ay, ayyy
In 'dis great future,
You can't forget your past
So dry your tears, I say
No hogwan no cry (x4)
You can't forget your past
So dry your tears, I say
No hogwan no cry (x4)
I guess I can see where he's coming from. . .so, I dropped work on my Marley edit and turned my full attention to recreating the Counting Crows' "Mr. Jones," in to a Junggye Branch original creatively titled, "Mr. Song." I spent the next few hours trying to incorporate every little fact we had learned about Mr. Song that day into this ridiculous cover that was, by the end, set to make an impression. . .whether it would be a positive or offensive one was yet to be known! You can read a transcript of the final product below.
Although we had agreed to meet up with David and Sonya, from the elementary branch, after school, they both flaked out for some reason that I don't recall so Nate and I were left to practice alone over cheese ramyeon and chamchi gimbap. By the time we let the restaurant we had worked out the majority of syllabic kinks as well as reworded any stanzas that were possibly too offensive or easily misinterpreted!
Friday morning we were again set to meet with the rest of our 'team' though practice was again cancelled due to. . .well, I can't quite recall. Anyways, I brought the baby Taylor to work so Nate and I could give it a couple practice runs before school. After work we marched over to Parthenon, the elementary school, in hopes of catching our teammates before they could make a getaway!
Luckily we were successful! While neither David nor Sonya were very familiar with the song, they both at least recognized it and agreed to give it a go as it appeared that we had poured a lot of effort in to rewriting the whole thing (which I'd like to think I did but really it was more of a way to pass the time then any grueling labor I was needlessly committed to). With the four of us together we ran through it a couple times just to kind of explain the timing on some of the more obscure lyrics. Sonya was actually enthusiastic enough about the whole thing that she asked to take home a tape I had recorded of the lyrics in order to better memorize them!
After no more than 30 minutes together, hunger took the best of everyone and we headed our separate ways; Sonya towards home, David to QuickStop and we middle school teachers towards our semi-ritualistic Friday night BBQ.
Come Saturday I spent the morning running around Eunag Sa-Gori in preparation for a long day a head. After a breakfast stop at Bagel Street Deli (don't get me wrong, this is the only normal-esque 'restaurant' on the corner and it certainly is not a 'deli'), I went wandering in search of Santa hats. Before heading to bed on Friday, Nate kindly reminded me that I offered, albeit in a joking manner, to pick up this article of our team's 'costume' for everyone and thus was obliged to do so. While I feared being unable to locate such a silly accessory on our very academic block, I ended up finding my way to a stationary/junk store just down the street next to our favorite steamed kimchi joint. There I was able to pick up four matching Santa hats for 1,000 won each. . .with that type of price I think I'll go back and grab some more to spread throughout school next week!
After fulfilling my costume duties, which, was really the only errand I had to run, I swung by Home Mart (which actually I think is called Home Plus, but I never remember and always refer to is as the former no matter what) to pick up some breakfast food, stopping at Starbucks (mmmmm, corporate coffee tastes better, it's true) on the way back to devour a toffee nut latte (mmmmm, the advertised seasonal special tastes even better) and a chapter of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" which, halfway through, I have found myself more and more absorbed in with each page turn! <----helluva run on sentence huh!? Back at 'home' I painstakingly wrapped up my oh so sly secret Santa present(a wonderfully cute Korean winter hat that consists of an animal head attached to two long paws that act not only as gloves but can be wrapped around one's neck as a scarf as well) in the excess paper I had bought the other day. Showering and getting dressed to impress I was ready to head out by half past two. Why so early?! Well because we certainly couldn't forgo DYB Song practice just because the majority of us had an FT Party to attend! Before heading off to Gunja for band practice, Nate, Sonya, David and I all met up at the middle school to run through "Mr. Song" a few more times. Though we were far from perfect, we decided that the lyrics themselves would be more than enough to pull us through, especially if we distributed copies of them throughout the crowd and asked everybody to participate in a sing-a-long in the name of DYB 'teamwork.' Bonus points!
Again Razer insisted on driving to band practice which meant we showed up half 'n hour late as opposed to arriving almost exactly on time as the subway would have gotten us there in under half 'n hour! Oh well! Unfortunately, no one's, or at least not my, mind was on the DYB Song as I continually fretted about our performance that evening. In turn, I managed to botch our rehearsal so badly that Razer is now insisting on a four hour practice this upcoming Saturday. . .mind you we have one song. . .one, song. . . I'm not quite sure he understands the concept of complacency though I've yet to address the issue!
Making it through a painfully disconnected rehearsal Nate and I hopped on the subway towards Daechi while Sonya drove home to change (David had headed out early for a Team Leader meeting). Meeting up with two seemingly lost FT's in the subway, identified by their bright orange DYB backpacks, we headed up towards the surface with no real clue as to where to go. With directions from David, that at first led us in the wrong direction, we eventually found the Grill One Steak House no more than five minutes past the seven o'clock meeting time. Nevertheless, Mr. Lee was outside waiting with a cigarette as we showed up and ushered us in impatiently indicating that we were late. . .clearly not a big deal!
Nate and I were shown to a large booth just inside the door where David sat with three other teachers, all of whom appeared to be Korean-American, as are what seems the majority of DYB FT's. We introduced ourselves to Don, Joe (I believe, but am not certain now), and Esther, the last of whom apparently remembered meeting us at the morning meeting we had in Daechi a few weeks ago where I was too sleepy to possibly remember anyone's name! Sorry!
We asked how the dinner thing was working as they pointed us to a 'buffet' lined up on a rolling bus boy cart. Having only a bagel on the day (intentionally saving room for what we believe was to be an all you can eat steak event) Nate and I dove at the food cart only to come up inexplicably disappointed. In place of steak we found what were seriously unidentifiable chunks of meet that must have been at least equal part bone. As we stood, staring at this 'spread' in utter disbelief, Mr. Lee came up from behind, reassuring us that the bone was the good part as we could suck the meat off it. . .sure, I'll try.
I took a few small pieces back to the table and gave up after the first one was nothing but fat mixed in with a few hard chunks of cartilage. Only after had Nate and I both retired from trying to consume any more did someone politely inform us that we were eating pig feet. Well what a wonderful way to start off a steak dinner! We looked at each other in shock, not sure whether or not we were expected to accept this unkosher (in more ways than one) dish as a full meal.
David reassured us that there would be more food as Mr. Lee had previously informed him that we were to dine on tuna later in the night. In fact, Mr. Lee claimed that he had purchased the finest, most expensive tuna on all of Jeju Island to serve to us this evening. Not sure if you're catching on to the theme here but anytime Mr. Lee gives you anything, it is always of the utmost quality and unbelievably expensive. . .or so he claims. . . kinda like the zip tie I borrowed.
It turns out we did end up getting some tuna sashimi which was a wonderful surprise following the pigs feet but undoubtedly not the finest tuna in all the land. While I have a hard time knocking a tasty slice of raw fish, it is pretty clear that the finest tuna cuts are the dark red tender bits (who knows where they come from) and not the tough stringy lighter colored stuff that we were served. While there is probably a tuna expert out there who is scoffing at my lack of tuna-wledge, I ascribed to what tastes better, is better, and thus, this was not the best tuna in the land!
Finally, after what must have been an hour wait, we were eventually served our 'steak' dinner! While what we got was indeed steak, I was hardly enthralled at my 8oz sirloin as all night Nate and I had been staring at a poster of a huge cut of what could only be the worlds most succulent tenderloin. Apparently that was just an advertisement! Don't get me wrong, I am not that much of a food snob that I'll turn my mouth up at a cheap steak but, if you're advertising a great steak dinner. . .make it a great steak dinner! No worries, we ended up being ordered seconds as Sonya thought it would be a good idea for Nate and I to eat more so she could take our fatty scraps for her cockier spaniel. . . talk about a win win situation!
The night progressed rather uneventfully for a while until the talent show began at which point all hell broke loose. Aside from giving you a video recap of the evening, which apologize for not being able to do, (Nate's camera ran out of battery at the first shot I tried to take of the tuna head on a platter next to the pig's feet) there is little that I can say to describe the progression of the night. . .so I'll spare you my never ending prose and break it down to the important details.
The first group to go was a two some, with a man playing classical guitar while the woman sang Dido's "Thank You." While her singing was rather impressive, you simply can't entertain a room full of drunk FT's with an un-miced classical guitar. . .though going first, they did have the benefit of a majority of the teacher's attention.
The next group to go performed some sort of skit/song about Winter Intensive to the tune of the 12 Days of Christmas.
Another group did a short, but engaging performance where the first team member took a shot of soju, the second two, and the third an entire bottle! While this hardly falls in to the category of 'talent' (though a whole soju bottle might if you've ever tasted soju) it certainly was entertaining.
The only other group, besides us of course, that really brought down the house was that of Daechi, the Main Branch. While I cannot explain exactly what they did, because a) I didn't care to watch and b) I don't care to remember. . .I can tell you it involved a good amount of fat male quasi nudity with Christmas-bell-to-nipple attachments. . . .entertaining yes. . .appalling, equally so!
Finally it was our turn. . .standing front and center I managed to hold the audience with my stage banter just long for Nate to finish up passing out our lyrics sheets after putting in a good solid half 'n hour of schmoozing to Mr. Song. To be honest, our performance went great. . .for the first verse at least. . . beyond that. . .who knows what happened. . .all I can say is that we earned a great deal of applause and Mr. Song was standing, whooping it up by the time we finished, entirely off beat, uncoordinated and equally lost from one another!
As far as I remember, though I didn't particularly give it much attention, no one that followed us challenged our performance in anyway. Thus, from what we gathered, we finished in second place to the obscene, and I do mean obscene, performance of Daechi's male revue.
I could go on about Mr. Song haphazardly accepting his gift of a tie that we all pitched in for, talking about how he took it with out really acknowledging it then later wrapped it around his head . . .but it just doesn't matter if you weren't there. Same as I could tell you about how Mr. Song continually attacked Mr. Lee as incomprehensible in each of his numerous speeches (which is true by the way). Or even how Mr. Song decided that it would be a good idea to bring up the only GI in the room to congratulate him, putting him on the spot with nothing to say and no clue as to what really was going on. But these are all events that just don't really make sense unless you're there. . . in which case they make even less sense which is why they are so fascinating. . . .Oh, not to mention, Mr. Song coming up to our table, early in the night before drinking, commenting on how he remembers us as Junggye, then pointing to David and saying 'Oh yes, you are very ugly,' and walking away without laughing or explanation. . . .No. . .not worth really delving into as this is just what happens in Korea.
Anyways, no prizes were awarded as Mr. Lee, and Mr. Song apparently decided that every body deserved a prize of 100,000 won that they promised us on the way out but we have yet to see a glimmer of. Oh well, as far as we know we came in second in the actual competition which is more than I could have hoped for practicing for our first time Friday evening. . .though I do hope for a better showing at the Korean Teacher Party in two weeks when we perform the DYB Song. . .though I can't imagine the teachers paying any more attention than they did this past weekend!
Anyways. . .I realize I just wrote a whole lot of nothing about nothing. . .but thanks for reading. . .actually, I dunno why I'd thank you for reading. . .other than it's interesting to look at my Google Analytics and see where you're reading from. . . To be honest. . .if you made it this far in this post you should probably invest in some tried and true literature cause you've clearly got some time on your hands! No, really, I'm just kidding, thanks for reading and Merry Pre-Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Ramadan and Lunar New Year (just kidding, the later is not until later January. . .duhhh)!
Enough, I'm done. . .I have yet to find out what happens to Taggart Transcontinental! If you know, please don't tell!
Who is John Galt anyways!?
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