From Lunch to Baseball

Last night was my first "Burning Friday" in a while. I am not sure how you say the expression in Korean, but "Burning Friday" is an expression similar to TGIF. It just means tonight we are going to be partying out late to celebrate the weekend. When I first heard it I thought it was some special holiday event, or I imagined my students out on the beach burning some sort of wicker man. I played ping-pong and went to a noraebong with friends from work and a few others. Korea has ping-pong rooms you can go to and rent a table to play. Some of the players there were intense. The noraebong, for those who don't know, is like karaoke, except instead of a whole bar full of strangers each group of friends occupies a small room with their own TV and music machine. We paid for an hour of music, but since the place was nearly empty we were upgraded to a larger room and got an extra hour for free, or "service" as the Koreans say. It was nice to go with a group that wasn't too shy about singing, and could actually sing pretty well too. I also learned that singing "Barbie Girl" by Aqua as a duet can be kind of uncomfortable and awkward given the innuendo.

This morning I woke up late and headed over to Han's Deli for lunch. Immediately some students were giving me some looks which made me wonder if they knew me or if they were just curious as usual. About the time I got my spaghetti and my bulgogi/bread/cheese dish, an older gentleman approached me to say hello. He told me that he just got back from the United States with the three boys that were sitting in the booth in front of me. They had gone on a three week tour up and down the east coast seeing Washington DC, Boston, Niagara, and New York among other places. They wanted to talk to me but were too shy. He stood there for a while and talked to me while I smiled and answered his questions a little nervously. I met the kids and shook their hands. They sat down with me at my booth while I finished my spaghetti and questioned the kids about Washington DC. Turns out the gentleman was a Methodist pastor from America, and had started a new church in NonHyeon just this year. He asked me if I liked baseball. I told him I did. After a short conversation in Korean with the boys he invited me to the Wyvern game today. The SK Wyverns I am told are one of nine teams in Korea. SK is the phone company that owns them, they are actually situated in Incheon. Today they were playing against the Doosan Bears of Seoul (formerly OB Bears), one of their big rivals. Having no plans for the day, I eagerly accepted the offer.

Pastor David told me a bit of his life story. He was born and raised in Incheon but finished his last year of high school in New Jersey. After trying out college and failing because of his English skill he joined the Army and became a chaplain. He retired from the military and recently decided to leave for Korea. His daughter, who had taught in Korea, told him to make friends with as many foreigners as he could because so often she was alone on the weekends with little do. For this reason, he had decided on a whim to ask me to the game today. It turns out his church is full of connections. The father of one of the boys he was with works the ticket booth at the stadium so we were able to get behind home plate tickets for free.

The stadium was not huge, but the enthusiasm of the crowd was. Each team had a robust cheering section. The Wyvern fans waved inflatable red sticks and the Bears had sticks of white on the opposite side. As David put it, in America, sure, everyone cheers. But in Korea, everyone cheers together. There is nothing like seeing an entire half of a stadium chanting the same song and waving their inflatables in sync with the music and each other. Most of the chants were new for me, but they had quite a few of our classics. "Charge!" was simply changed to "Go!" for instance. One glaring omission, sadly, was "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." I thought for sure every baseball nation on the planet had that one translated. Both teams have a group of female cheerleaders who are lead by one male in a team uniform. Each side only chants when they are at bat. They take turns, but at this game the Wyvern fans did "she" ("shh" in English) the other fans and boo only once.

The game was solid. We missed the first few innings and by the time we arrived the Wyverns were down 1 to 3. We had a long dry stretch with no runs on either side, but David made it interesting with his commentary. He told me one of the players, Dave Bush, was traded from Milwaukee to the Wyverns. The Bears had an American too. The highlight was probably the pitcher for the Wyverns. He was part of the Olympic team and I was told he was a real star. 

At the fifth inning stretch I wandered around the stadium and grabbed a beer. Beer was reasonably priced, and so were snacks. This was probably because they allow people to bring snacks from outside and need to remain competitive. I couldn't help but notice there were by and large no vendors hawking hot dogs or beer up and down the steps. Perhaps it has to do with the expense. Items in the team store still had a huge markup (26,000 won for a ballcap? I don't think so).

In the bottom of the eighth things really picked up. The Wyverns gained the lead with three runs. Unfortunately, a single home run in the ninth inning was enough from the Bears to tie the game and have it continue into overtime. They ended up going up through twelve innings before finally calling it a tie.

We stayed for the fireworks after the game to avoid the crowd and I am glad we did because they opened with Star Wars. But right as the fireworks went up, rain started to pour down. We were drenched by the time we got back to the car. David drove us to get a quick little dinner and I sampled some food he thought I should try. He again invited me to come to his church the next day, not as a Christian, but as a human who needs to meet more people in Korea. He felt that I needed to meet Koreans outside of the school to see how "real" Koreans live. I wondered how my Korean teacher friends would feel about that characterization, but I do understand what he meant. To understand Korea, I need to break away from that bubble and meet people from all walks of life. I accepted the offer.