Farewell parties

There have been a lot of new faces around the Daejeon ECC community recently. First John left at the end of July. We sent him off by staying up drinking and singing in a Noraebong (karaoke room) with him:

You can tell from the fact that he is throwing up the Korean X to say 'no' that John has been in Korea for too long (a year and a half already, and he's now in Seoul for grad school in Asia Studies).

We all get rather involved in our singing at the Noraebong

Next to abandon us was half of the Daejeon ECC foreign teachers: Lindsay and Lauren from my dong (neighborhood) and Jeff, Mad, and Thomas from downtown. They all left on September first. On their penultimate weekend Will and I threw the a barbecue on the roof, which was another great success.

On their last weekend Mad and Jeff threw a party in their spacious apartment where we were all to dress in our favorite odd Korean outfit. Hilarity ensued. Some people opted for shirts covered in Konglish (babelfish-generated blocks of what appears to be English if you took away grammar and coherence):

Others wore outfits that one can only find in Korea:

A common phenomenon here is couples outfits. The clothing is actually designed for people who are dating:

We were kind of sad that the one Korean who showed up wasn't wearing a cowboy hat and flannel. After all, we North Americans are also eminently mockable.

  I think the clear winner for the night was Colin and his hooded pink beater. Another great hoodie-related item of Korean clothing is the hoodie that zips all the way up, hiding your face., which was sadly lacking at the party. Lindsay is modeling an ajima (older woman) uniform of visor, mask, and white gloves, though she needs a brightly colored track suit and permed hair to be up to full dress code (I swear, 90% of women between the ages of 40 and 60 wear what I have just described).

We met all the new people and sent off the old. As the night wore on we played a game of Never Have I Ever, and it was odd to be on the other side of that game. When I used to play my freshman year I was by far the most innocent, and this time I was definitely at the other extreme. I guess things are different when playing with non-Reedies (and after attending Reed). [As a side note, I can no longer use my favorite 'never have I ever been drunk' as of last night when Alanna and I went out for a fancy Italian dinner and the half bottle of Riesling I drank unexpectedly went to my head. I have definitely consumed more alcohol in a sitting before with absolutely no effect, so it was a bit of a surprise to find my head swimming. I'm not sure of my opinion of the experience. ]

On Sunday we all met up for dinner at Lindsay's, which felt a bit like a wake. We then went across the street to the Daejeon World Cup Stadium for a rather tame soccer game. The most interesting bit was that the rival team, from a town I'd never heard of before, seemed to have grabbed up any flag that was the right color since I don't think they really endorse the politics of Che Guevara. I honestly can't think of many places less likely to see Che's face than in contemporary South Korea, the land of capitalism and conformism and whose citizens of course associate communism with North Korea.

We did our part to try to fill the massive stadium, but it was a futile attempt:

The team is called the Daejeon Citizens, which is not only one of the lamest team names ever, but also seeming false judging by the ethnic diversity of both teams.

A fond farewell to all those departed, and good luck to them all.