Everywhere you go, you find people talking about food. It's only natural. Everyone eats, and it's sensible and understandable to take an interest in what you put into your body. However, until last year I had no idea how much the average American talks about food. Empirical evidence suggests that a sentence uttered by an American in a social situation has roughly a 75% chance of being about food. This increases to around 95% if the social situation is a meal. When I got back to England for Christmas last year, I knew I wanted a curry and some roast lamb (preferably on separate days for the good of anyone in my immediate vicinity) but wasn't too bothered when that happened. Friends from across the Atlantic Ocean had their eating schedules planned out almost to the minute. Food is definitely more of an obsession for our cousins over there than it is in England. In fact, our lack of a national cuisine was often used by them as a stick to beat me with, which seems strange to me coming from a nation which, despite it's feverish commitment to artery clogging, still can´t cook a decent breakfast, thinks it invented the bagel and spends a fair amount of it's time wolfing down burritos.
The Korean attitude to food is even more obsessive. Hanshik is a real source of national pride. One of the first questions any Westerner gets asked here is "Do you like Korean food?". People can actually get quite offended if you say no. Whenever I return from a weekend away my co-teacher will ask me what I ate, and is always ready with a recommendation for whichever place I am going to. Almost everywhere in Korea is famous for some kind of food or another. I remember being taken to Icheon on my orientation course. We were taken to a restaurant which served "excellent rice". Yep, this restaurant prided itself on serving some of the best white rice in the country. Quite honestly, I couldn't tell the difference.
The social role that food plays here is also hugely, hugely important. In my town at least, restaurants outnumber bars by about 10 to 1. Eating out is fairly cheap here, so people do it far more often than in England. Every single occasion is, begins with or ends with a meal. I wonder (without wishing to be flippant about people in poverty) if anyone is ever really hungry here. One meal seems to follow immediately on from another. Sometimes this is fine. Everyone likes to load up on food once in a while, but when all this eating takes place over the course of a football tournament, you wonder how sensible it really is.
I was very much looking forward to making my début for the town football team. Despite having to get up at 6.30am on a Sunday morning (it was never like this for the Brecknock) I was really pleased to get to play some proper football. On the sounding of my alarm ,I jumped out of bed, ate a breakfast of scrambled eggs and a banana milk for energy, and headed out. The tournament was being played in Ansan, and featured four other teams. Ansan is over the other side of the country to us, a good three hour bus ride away. Understandably then, an hour down the road the bus pulled off the road and stopped at a diner, where breakfast was laid out. I was still pretty full from my own breakfast, and so just picked at a few things. This was immediately interpreted as me not being able to eat spicy Korean breakfast due to my delicate western palate, and the captain's son Phil was despatched to take me to the convenience store instead. Incidentally, my delicate Western palate would have it's revenge later. After failed attempts to persuade Phil that I was OK, I consented to him buying me some kind of chocolate bar. We got back on the bus, and continued on the way to Ansan.
When the bus next came to a halt, I looked out of the window to see this:
The impressively modern "Wa" stadium stood in front of me. "We play here" said one of my team mates. I was doubtful, and proven right when the bus then drove around the stadium to a training pitch at the back. Still, it was a very nice facility, and probably one of the better pitches I have ever played on. Having the stadium in the background lent it a bit of a professional air too. Take a look at the photos below.
And so the time comes for me to make my debut for Jinbu AFC. It's a good debut too, as we twice sweep through the opposition to go 2-0 up inside the first ten minutes. I score the second, as the opposition goalkeeper somehow manages to fail to stop my completely mishit lob. We continue to play all of the football, but show a worrying tendency to concede goals, as the opposition score twice on what are almost their only two forays into our half. Fortunately, we grab a late winner and sit down the victors, 3-2.
Just as I have grabbed a drink of the horribly named Pocari Sweat (Gatorade, basically) and sat down, the captain grabs my arm. "Alex, lunch" he says. It's 11am. Behind the stand we're sitting in, a picnic of fruit, kimbap and kimchi pancakes has been laid out. I sit down, and pick at a couple of pieces of fruit. The captain hands me a cup of beer, followed by a cup of makoli. Again, it's 11am. We have three more games of football to play. This kind of behaviour would barely be acceptable in a cricket tournament. Once again, my reticence in eating and drinking meets with a mixture of confusion and suspicion, but I am determined that I'm going to enjoy my football, and not run around trying not to be sick.
We run almost straight from the picnic area to the pitch for game number two. The lunch has had predictable effects and the pace of the game is incredibly slow. The Jinbu tactic of spreading the ball to the wings is effective in as far as it gets the ball to our wingers. Worryingly they have more than a little of the Theo Walcott about them, in that their delivery is sometimes erratic, and sometimes just plain rubbish. And the only person not too laden down with beer and pancake to get in the area is me. Our build up play doesn't reap any rewards and our defensive frailties re-appear. We eventually lose the second game 2-1.
I sit out the third game, which is probably a good thing as the sun is now blazing down, and the possibility of sunstroke is now very real. On the whole, I prefer playing football in the rainy British winter. Two almost completely immobile sides knock the ball around in midfield. Failure to pick up the one player on the opposition who even looks like a footballer leads to another defeat, 1-0.
After that, unbelievably, I am dragged off for lunch number two. This is a hearty bowl of ddak gae jang, a particularly good chicken stew made with red pepper paste. It's actually a favourite dish of mine, but not in the middle of a football tournament in 85 degree sunshine. My teammates once again assume I'm a wimp, so I have a small bowl just to reassure them that I do in fact like hot food. They look dubious, and fill their bowls to the brim with the stew. Of course, more beer and makoli are needed to kill the spice, and my team is starting to look a little drunk.
We play the final game, which has stopped looking like any kind of competitive match and is now looking like a game of keepy-uppy after a particularly good barbecue. Occasionally a player makes a run, but I think it's almost seen as bad form at this point. I start to want to go home. Travelling halfway across the country to play in this doesn't really seem to have been worthwhile.
The tournament ends, and we get changed and get back on the bus. I'm tired, sore and sunburnt, so the opportunity to sit quietly on the bus for a few hours is very welcome. I think I might even have a little snooze. It's been a long day already. Of course, just as I close my eyes, the bus stops back in Ansan. Surely, surely, no one could possibly want to eat more. Apparently they do, as we all pile into a seafood restaurant and sit down. On the floor. This is exactly, exactly what I wanted to do at this moment. A giant plate of tentacles is placed in front of us, along with a beansprout soup with ice in it, and a bowl of rice. Obviously, there are also about 30 bottles of soju on the table as well. The tentacles turn out to be really good though, mostly by virtue of being comfortably the hottest thing that I have eaten in Korea. Much is made (mostly by Koreans) of how hot the food is here, but up to this point I hadn't really been that impressed. This however, has a lot of punch. It's probably about the same level of spice of a not too lethal vindaloo. I get through it OK, which is more than can be said for a lot of my team-mates. I look around to see iced soup being poured into bowls of rice and squid, and people desperately fanning air over their burning tongues. I sit, smile and keep chewing. Not such a delicate palate after all. Then an old man from one of the other teams comes and sits next to me. As he tries to talk to me in English, he runs his hand up and down my thigh. I'm pretty sure this is just how old men treat their juniors here, rather than an advance. I don't know though, maybe he finds my creamy white skin exotic. Anyway, probably not what I really wanted at this point.
Team-mates
We leave the restaurant around 3pm. The Jinbu AFC record reads: Played: 4, Won: 1, Lost: 3, Breakfasts: 1, Lunches: 3, Beer: quite a lot, Makoli: 1 kettleful, Bottles of soju: too many to count. Finally though, we are on our way home, and doubtless everyone will simply sit down and go to sleep. This is OK. Though I am now a bit drunk, I can have a nap and I'll still be fine to face school in the morning. Then, this happens:
Yes. What you can see above is people moving through the bus, forcing everyone to drink beer mixed with soju, and also forcefeeding them rice cakes wrapped in seaweed, all accompanied by the absolute worst pounding dance music I have ever encountered. The ghost of 2unlimited is clearly turning in it's grave. How far things have fallen since the glorious mid 90s. The real nadir comes with a hideous techno remix of the YMCA, which goes down surprisingly well with my (probably homophobic) compadres. All of this reminds me of a time I went on a charity fundraiser travelling from Exeter to Liverpool and back. A lot of stuff like this went on. That's excusable, as I was 18 and an idiot. Most of the people on this bus are in their 30's or older.
On our return to Jinbu, there is still one more meal of cold noodles to eat and yet more soju to drink. I am by now drunk and fed up. I have been out since 6.30am and it's now getting on for 8pm. I am also forced to make my second ever speech in Korean (consisting of me mainly saying hello, and I like Jinbu). I finish my noodles and join some of the guys outside. I am definitely not going to be well tomorrow, as you can probably see.
And so it proves. I get in at 8.30, and pass out, waking again at 4.30am. I spend the following day at school in a daze, and at one point get the shakes during my third class. I really, really hate working with a hangover. It's just about OK if you're sat in front of a computer all day, but when faced with a class of Korean teachers it's definitely not cool.
In conclusion I should say that I did actually have a pretty good day. The above makes it sound pretty awful, but I've focused on the uncomfortable and awkward parts as they are generally the funnier ones. It was great fun to meet everyone involved with Jinbu AFC. They are a very funny and generous bunch, and I look forward to playing for them in the future. It also inspires me to keep going with learning Korean so I can communicate with them a bit better; while football may be the universal language, it's not a lot of use for telling a Korean that you've already eaten breakfast.
OK, until next time.
A
