accidental filipino road trip
I had an interesting day yesterday. I was prepared to go play basketball for the morning and I ended up traveling across Korea in a 13-hour trek that left me sunburnt and exhausted. I'll start from the beginning. I was sitting at home on Saturday resting, playing video games and still recovering from bronchitis when Leta she was sick of sitting around and decided to go for a walk. We agreed I should order some Chinese food because neither of us wanted to cook. It came before she got back and while I was eating my share I got a phone call from Leta that would change my weekend. She had stopped at the Filipino store to pick up some miscellaneous groceries and it was late enough on Saturday that some of our friends were there intending to hang out all night. In case I didn't make it clear in earlier posts, on Saturday nights this place turns into a magnet for (mostly) Filipinos living in Korea. Most of the men work for factories in the area and most of the women have gotten married to Korean men one way or another. Lately we found out that most of them had their marriages arranged through the Unification Church (the Moonies). Anyways, the place is always interesting and so the phone call got me off my butt despite feeling sick and soon enough I was at the store.
I met a few new people when I got there and the night was going smoothly. Two men from Pakistan who had never been there before dropped by and talking to them was very interesting. They were in similar situations to the workers from the Philippines. These guys seem to be professional migrant workers and like to discuss salaries and which countries other people can get Visas to and the things that make it hard to do so. They're world travelers, but in the least recreational sense imaginable. Very interesting people. At some point in the night, while discussing the basketball game next weekend, Leta and I were invited to join them tomorrow. We both simultaneously misunderstood this invitation as an opportunity to play basketball with them as they normally have invited us to do on weekends before. So as the night faded away and we went home, we had the contact information of one guy who was going to help me get there the next day.
I woke up at 8am after not much sleep, being still sick and Leta's cough having kept her up most of the night. Needless to say, she didn't feel like going to watch me play basketball and so she pulled the sick card and sent me on my way with our new cellphone and an address to tell a cab driver. It took awhile to find a cab (in Korea you don't call them, you find them driving around) and once I did, we were unclear if there was an understanding about which address I wanted to go to. Now I know '4th street' is 'sa-ban', as i might have guessed, but it took a phone call to my friend to explain exactly where I wanted to go. He called while I was on my way and asked if I was almost there, as they were waiting to go... and of course I had no idea, since I was in a cab having no idea where I was or where I was going. I got there a minute before the two busses full of people waiting would leave. The cab driver ripped me off for $25, which was almost half the money I had brought to "play basketball." So I hop on this bus and inside all the walls, curtains and frills are decorated in red and yellow patterns like something from Mexico or the 70s. I sat near my friend and he told me it was going to be a long bus ride. I worried at this point that they were bringing me to play in some tournament.
The bus was playing CSI episodes on the satellite TV at the front. My seat was cramped and it wasn't long before I started feeling pretty sick. Hours went by and this feeling only got worse as the fans bombarded me with cold smelly wind and we got to the mountain range on the eastern side of the country. It was typical mountain driving, zigzagging up and down cliff faces, but as usual the bus driver was driving to optimize time. I had to hold my breath and dig my face into the seat in front of me for most of the last hour to stop from losing the banana I'd eaten that morning. Finally, three and a half hours later, we arrived at a beautiful beach town and parked with a dozen other busses all packed with Filipinos. I was glad for Leta that she had decided not to come on whatever this trip was going to become, as she definitely would not have managed to hold stomach when I only barely did. I was still recovering from the ride when everyone started lining up for lunch. I sat with my friends who were feeling similar from the ride and waited for the line to wind down. They were serving the food from big vats in rubber-gloved fistfulls onto little plastic plates. I didn't feel that I could choke anything down, but thankfully whoever had cooked it knew what they were doing and so it tasted good enough to eat about a quarter of before I was done.
It was around this time that I managed to piece together through questions and common sense exactly what this day was all about. It was a yearly trip for Filipinos working throughout Korea organized by the Catholic church, which usually entailed going to a beach for the day and playing games. Thankfully, this event kept in mind that most of the people there had jobs with very demanding schedules and the whole show was going to get me back to Gwangju by 9pm before the last bus, so I would be able to get home. I called Leta and let her know what this day was really all about and we arranged to meet in Gwangju. I was sad once I realized that I had come to a beach with warm water without bringing anything to swim. I had worn a t-shirt and shorts and brought nothing but my wallet and cellphone, so after awhile the relentless wind from the ocean made it too cold to stay in the shade. We walked out on a manmade peninsula of boulders and some of the Filipinos stripped down to their boxers and swam. I knew that I would regret if I got any of the clothes I was wearing wet, probably in the form of getting much more sick than I already was, so I didn't swim. I just lie on the rocks in the sun trying to keep warm.
After an hour or so, people began to gather up on the beach for games and so we went up. The first game was tug-of-war. I've actually never played this game before as an adult, but the guys who I'd come with insisted I come with them. This is the point at which my nickname 'import' began to stick. They had joked that if I went to play basketball with them, the other teams would accuse them of getting an import (because i'm tall, none of them have actually seen me play). So we played and won, but it's funny how a couple minutes of pulling on a huge rope can drain you of all energy. I got hit double when I realized I was starting to feel the impact of the sun, but the shade was still too cold from the wind to stay in for long. When they called our team up for a second round, I didn't want to do it. They kept at me, though, and so feeling kind of spun out I went for a second round of things I gave it my best and we won again. I then went directly to the bathroom and puked my guts out. Thankfully I found a water cooler that they had brought and that helped me regain my head. Some Canadians from up the beach decided they wanted to challenge the Filipinos to a match and people called for me to join again, but I just shook my head and thankfully nobody pressed it. The Canadians lost the first time and then got really serious about it and won the second. They wanted a tiebreaker but it was time for sack races. I wasn't up for participating in any more games, but they were all really fun to watch. After that, they played a game where people had to take off clothes and stretch the furthest out toward the water on the beach. One of the teams was all guys and one had half girls and the guys lost everything down to the pants, but the girls team managed to win easily without losing any modesty. I was impressed that not even one of the guys lost their pants in an attempt to win.
The last game was going to be a beer drinking contest. There were many points during this day that I wished I had brought my camera, but watching the nun carry up 24-packs and pass out beers along the long line of competitors was one of those things you regret not catching on film for the rest of your life. Anyways, people had to lean over, open and drink their beer the fastest to win. Apparently they all knew what to do because most when finished their beer dumped the foam in their hair as if that was what one had to do. Seemed pretty disgusting to me, knowing what stale beer smells like and knowing we had hours of a bus ride to get home, but it did make the whole event that much more impressive. After the beer-drinking contest, they held mass. I was happy to hear this, since it'd been a long time since I'd been to a service and much longer since I'd been to a Catholic one. The priest performing the mass was an Indonesian missionary and the speakers were cutting out for most of the service, but I was happy to realize that I knew most of the words since they're roughly the same as in the Anglican service. I was surprised when Communion came along that more people didn't go up for it, indicating to me at least that most of the people there weren't Catholic. Those I'd come with also knew that I wasn't, so I abstained to avoid offending them or whatever. After the mass, they handed out prizes for the games earlier. I won a dollar store hot pad holder for my role in the tug-of-war.
After a long day, we were finally heading home. I felt bad as I realized that my surprise, sickness and unpreparedness for the day might have at times made me seem like I wasn't enjoying myself, but I assured everyone that asked that I was. I didn't know it at the time, but my face and arms had lit up like a lobster, so I'm sure they knew by looking at me that I was just tired. For awhile on the bus ride home, I thought I'd have to endure some idiotic movie called 'the Void' on low volume, but just when I was starting to get sick from the mountain bends again somebody got up and turned on the karaoke machine. I shouldn't have been surprised that my day was not yet finished, but I could not have expected that I would spend these next 3 hours in a mobile norebang. Some guy got up and started dancing around to the music and pulled out a bottle of soju and a dixie cup. He danced up to the front of the bus and started pouring people shots as he went along. I didn't know the Aerosmith song 'Angel' before this bus ride, but I knew all the words by the end of it as it was the most frequently played song on the trip.. maybe 8 plays in total. Some songs called 'Evergreen' and 'Beautiful Sunday' were among the other top ones played. I sang Take it Easy, The Boxer and One More Cup of Coffee as some of the only songs on the list that I could manage with the energy I had. The soju faerie did quite a few rounds of the bus and I seemed to have a neverending supply in his bag, but I kept passing because the sun at this point had completely done me in.
We got to Gwangju later than I'd arranged to meet Leta and so my friends helped me find a taxi to take downtown. I thanked them for the fun adventure and left with only a few goodbyes. After this cab ride, I'd spent about 35 bucks on cabs for the day and maybe 3 dollars more on water and had paid nothing for my trip across the country to a beach I'm not sure I ever knew the name of. I met up with Leta and she'd bought plenty of dollar store stuff to organize the house as I'd expected. As I ate supper, my first real meal of the day, I began to crash. Taking the subway and then bus home seemed like it might not happen. Listening to Jon Stewart's Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction sustained me until I fell into bed.
So that was yesterday. This is next morning and writing this is all I've got. I'm going back to bed.
I met a few new people when I got there and the night was going smoothly. Two men from Pakistan who had never been there before dropped by and talking to them was very interesting. They were in similar situations to the workers from the Philippines. These guys seem to be professional migrant workers and like to discuss salaries and which countries other people can get Visas to and the things that make it hard to do so. They're world travelers, but in the least recreational sense imaginable. Very interesting people. At some point in the night, while discussing the basketball game next weekend, Leta and I were invited to join them tomorrow. We both simultaneously misunderstood this invitation as an opportunity to play basketball with them as they normally have invited us to do on weekends before. So as the night faded away and we went home, we had the contact information of one guy who was going to help me get there the next day.
I woke up at 8am after not much sleep, being still sick and Leta's cough having kept her up most of the night. Needless to say, she didn't feel like going to watch me play basketball and so she pulled the sick card and sent me on my way with our new cellphone and an address to tell a cab driver. It took awhile to find a cab (in Korea you don't call them, you find them driving around) and once I did, we were unclear if there was an understanding about which address I wanted to go to. Now I know '4th street' is 'sa-ban', as i might have guessed, but it took a phone call to my friend to explain exactly where I wanted to go. He called while I was on my way and asked if I was almost there, as they were waiting to go... and of course I had no idea, since I was in a cab having no idea where I was or where I was going. I got there a minute before the two busses full of people waiting would leave. The cab driver ripped me off for $25, which was almost half the money I had brought to "play basketball." So I hop on this bus and inside all the walls, curtains and frills are decorated in red and yellow patterns like something from Mexico or the 70s. I sat near my friend and he told me it was going to be a long bus ride. I worried at this point that they were bringing me to play in some tournament.
The bus was playing CSI episodes on the satellite TV at the front. My seat was cramped and it wasn't long before I started feeling pretty sick. Hours went by and this feeling only got worse as the fans bombarded me with cold smelly wind and we got to the mountain range on the eastern side of the country. It was typical mountain driving, zigzagging up and down cliff faces, but as usual the bus driver was driving to optimize time. I had to hold my breath and dig my face into the seat in front of me for most of the last hour to stop from losing the banana I'd eaten that morning. Finally, three and a half hours later, we arrived at a beautiful beach town and parked with a dozen other busses all packed with Filipinos. I was glad for Leta that she had decided not to come on whatever this trip was going to become, as she definitely would not have managed to hold stomach when I only barely did. I was still recovering from the ride when everyone started lining up for lunch. I sat with my friends who were feeling similar from the ride and waited for the line to wind down. They were serving the food from big vats in rubber-gloved fistfulls onto little plastic plates. I didn't feel that I could choke anything down, but thankfully whoever had cooked it knew what they were doing and so it tasted good enough to eat about a quarter of before I was done.
It was around this time that I managed to piece together through questions and common sense exactly what this day was all about. It was a yearly trip for Filipinos working throughout Korea organized by the Catholic church, which usually entailed going to a beach for the day and playing games. Thankfully, this event kept in mind that most of the people there had jobs with very demanding schedules and the whole show was going to get me back to Gwangju by 9pm before the last bus, so I would be able to get home. I called Leta and let her know what this day was really all about and we arranged to meet in Gwangju. I was sad once I realized that I had come to a beach with warm water without bringing anything to swim. I had worn a t-shirt and shorts and brought nothing but my wallet and cellphone, so after awhile the relentless wind from the ocean made it too cold to stay in the shade. We walked out on a manmade peninsula of boulders and some of the Filipinos stripped down to their boxers and swam. I knew that I would regret if I got any of the clothes I was wearing wet, probably in the form of getting much more sick than I already was, so I didn't swim. I just lie on the rocks in the sun trying to keep warm.
After an hour or so, people began to gather up on the beach for games and so we went up. The first game was tug-of-war. I've actually never played this game before as an adult, but the guys who I'd come with insisted I come with them. This is the point at which my nickname 'import' began to stick. They had joked that if I went to play basketball with them, the other teams would accuse them of getting an import (because i'm tall, none of them have actually seen me play). So we played and won, but it's funny how a couple minutes of pulling on a huge rope can drain you of all energy. I got hit double when I realized I was starting to feel the impact of the sun, but the shade was still too cold from the wind to stay in for long. When they called our team up for a second round, I didn't want to do it. They kept at me, though, and so feeling kind of spun out I went for a second round of things I gave it my best and we won again. I then went directly to the bathroom and puked my guts out. Thankfully I found a water cooler that they had brought and that helped me regain my head. Some Canadians from up the beach decided they wanted to challenge the Filipinos to a match and people called for me to join again, but I just shook my head and thankfully nobody pressed it. The Canadians lost the first time and then got really serious about it and won the second. They wanted a tiebreaker but it was time for sack races. I wasn't up for participating in any more games, but they were all really fun to watch. After that, they played a game where people had to take off clothes and stretch the furthest out toward the water on the beach. One of the teams was all guys and one had half girls and the guys lost everything down to the pants, but the girls team managed to win easily without losing any modesty. I was impressed that not even one of the guys lost their pants in an attempt to win.
The last game was going to be a beer drinking contest. There were many points during this day that I wished I had brought my camera, but watching the nun carry up 24-packs and pass out beers along the long line of competitors was one of those things you regret not catching on film for the rest of your life. Anyways, people had to lean over, open and drink their beer the fastest to win. Apparently they all knew what to do because most when finished their beer dumped the foam in their hair as if that was what one had to do. Seemed pretty disgusting to me, knowing what stale beer smells like and knowing we had hours of a bus ride to get home, but it did make the whole event that much more impressive. After the beer-drinking contest, they held mass. I was happy to hear this, since it'd been a long time since I'd been to a service and much longer since I'd been to a Catholic one. The priest performing the mass was an Indonesian missionary and the speakers were cutting out for most of the service, but I was happy to realize that I knew most of the words since they're roughly the same as in the Anglican service. I was surprised when Communion came along that more people didn't go up for it, indicating to me at least that most of the people there weren't Catholic. Those I'd come with also knew that I wasn't, so I abstained to avoid offending them or whatever. After the mass, they handed out prizes for the games earlier. I won a dollar store hot pad holder for my role in the tug-of-war.
After a long day, we were finally heading home. I felt bad as I realized that my surprise, sickness and unpreparedness for the day might have at times made me seem like I wasn't enjoying myself, but I assured everyone that asked that I was. I didn't know it at the time, but my face and arms had lit up like a lobster, so I'm sure they knew by looking at me that I was just tired. For awhile on the bus ride home, I thought I'd have to endure some idiotic movie called 'the Void' on low volume, but just when I was starting to get sick from the mountain bends again somebody got up and turned on the karaoke machine. I shouldn't have been surprised that my day was not yet finished, but I could not have expected that I would spend these next 3 hours in a mobile norebang. Some guy got up and started dancing around to the music and pulled out a bottle of soju and a dixie cup. He danced up to the front of the bus and started pouring people shots as he went along. I didn't know the Aerosmith song 'Angel' before this bus ride, but I knew all the words by the end of it as it was the most frequently played song on the trip.. maybe 8 plays in total. Some songs called 'Evergreen' and 'Beautiful Sunday' were among the other top ones played. I sang Take it Easy, The Boxer and One More Cup of Coffee as some of the only songs on the list that I could manage with the energy I had. The soju faerie did quite a few rounds of the bus and I seemed to have a neverending supply in his bag, but I kept passing because the sun at this point had completely done me in.
We got to Gwangju later than I'd arranged to meet Leta and so my friends helped me find a taxi to take downtown. I thanked them for the fun adventure and left with only a few goodbyes. After this cab ride, I'd spent about 35 bucks on cabs for the day and maybe 3 dollars more on water and had paid nothing for my trip across the country to a beach I'm not sure I ever knew the name of. I met up with Leta and she'd bought plenty of dollar store stuff to organize the house as I'd expected. As I ate supper, my first real meal of the day, I began to crash. Taking the subway and then bus home seemed like it might not happen. Listening to Jon Stewart's Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction sustained me until I fell into bed.
So that was yesterday. This is next morning and writing this is all I've got. I'm going back to bed.
posted by Pope Lithium at 6:18 PM
6 comments
We left the palace and museum, checked out of our motel and went to see the South Gate of Seoul before we left. There we met this guy who volunteered his time as a tourist guide and he told us about the importance of the city gates and how the terrible Japanese had all but destroyed the other ones and kept this one to run a streetcar through. Most of the time he spent talking to us he was getting us to memorize the Confucian principles that gave significance to gates like this:
