salsa etc.

Le midnight croissant! (purchased at "Paris Baguette)

Tonight I had so much fun I was debating on leaving Korea! I LOVE LOVE LOVE my new salsa class. I am studying with "Kitten" who is a fabulous dancer best known for her highly sexy styling and curvaceous physique (by Korean standards) at a salsa club called Caribe. I was in heaven! I learned some body isolation and body rolls, salsa style booty pops, some new steps and turns, and some pretty shines with delicate ladies styling. LOVE LOVE LOVE.

And the Caribe owner is interested in enlisting my PR skills to help him promote a weekly latin night targeting the foreign community. But unfortunately I could not stay while the rest of the ladies were filming kitten doing the moves. The salsa shoes were slipped into their bag and I zipped up my ridiculously high peep toe booties, and went to the second club of the night. And did I mention that I'm talking about a Monday? Welcome to Melinda's life pre-salsa show.

I headed to Urban next where a couple of our salseros were waiting. We have a great mix of foreigners (I'm gonna have to stop using this word back home) and Korean students who are doing a rueda. There was a bit of a mixup as I tried to decide whether to dance as a man or woman - I am a proud androgynous salsa dancer - but I went with woman. It was a pretty chill Monday night crowd at the club, but we had a bit of an audience.

There were a few Koreans who were enjoying some drinks at the bar who got excited about salsa and got up to learn. One of the guys I met was a modern dance teacher and he invited me to one of his shows. He asked me if I wanted his foreign or Korean name. I said the Korean one, which was Dong-wook. why? because I have grown tired of Koreans using crappy English names. Why should you have an English name? You already have a Korean one. Dong-wook will always be a better name than Jacob Tutu, Converse, or Microwave.

I actually met a guy yesterday who said he used to go by Peter, but now uses his Korean name. That was sweet sweet music to my ears and I celebrated by piercing a slab of kimchi with my metal chopsticks and exclaiming MASHITDA.

But back to Dong-wook. He told me that he knows Mexican-style salsa. I made a weird face as images of norteno dancing popped into my head. Then he said, "Mexico.. Colombia salsa." Salsa snob that I am, I let him know that Mexican style doesn't exist... "to my knowledge," I threw in as an afterthought (Confucious gets to you once you're here long enough, trust me. All that bowing and two-handed serving and indirect making of requests.... I can't control it anymore). And allow me to interject right here, that Ecuador doesn't have a salsa style either. Sure,

Ecuadorians dance salsa. Not strikingly well compared to say, Colombians, but other types of music like cumbia, merengue and *gasp* techno, are popular. But the people who dance it really well (i.e. lots of turns which always impress people) the way lots of North Americans like to imagine are really a small minority.

Anyways once we agreed that Colombian style is awesome, me and Dong-wook high fived each other and I was on my way to catch a cab home.

A smaller group of us will also be doing the pretty complicated dance with some flips and stunts - this time we'll film it and you'll see us doing the no-hand cartwheel and jumping onto the guys with one leg in the air. Stuntage: 100% courtesy of Ms. Sanchez. (I'm glad she made us do it) Looks like Daegu is going to have a serious month of latin parties this month.... nice-suh.

Now to see a huge shift in tone, this is what I wrote earlier at my desk during the dreary dreary gray day that was today:

Writer's block.

Suddenly I become fascinated in reading news articles. A quick search on Al Jazeera turns into career stalking of Imran Garda and Teresa Bo. How did they get where they are? What can I do to get there, too?

It is absolute torture to be sitting down. TORTURE. I listen to salsa. I mentally walk through the choreography we will practice tonight. My mind can leave, my mind can go.. .anywhere but here.

My concentration definitely sucks today. But my posture is fantastic, as Asha points out. Probably because of the vast amounts of dance in my life these days. But let's backtrack a bit, and talk about the weekend - significantly more interesting than my weekdays. So there were two birthday parties. Asha's, which started with a lovely dinner and transitioned into dancing, and another party that required all attendees to wear togas. A large number of my friends were involved, including some salsa gente. I don't really do togas, so I went with a festive neon-blue cheetah print dress, which I claim helps me sell the salsa class. I always wear dresses to salsa, and I like to add a barrio fab edge, however, I was put in my place by Nakia: "Looks like you're selling a lot more than the class."

But regardless of toga and dinner parties, salsa must happen, so I went to Babalu to assist our LA style guest instructors to do their thing. But upon arrival at the club I was in for a surprise. Alexander, my beloved Babalu employee and friend, quit his job at the salsa club to take an acting job in Seoul.

He has provided hours of entertainment and witty commentary, and taught me a few secrets, like the fact that some Korean guys call ugly girls "ogres" and pretend that they will kill them, as if life were a video game. He also explained the nightclub system in detail, taught me what actually goes down on some hiking retreats for middle-aged singles, helped us out with salsa practices and parties including filming us as we prepared performances, taught me a lot about Korean culture and food (cheese kimbab!) and helped me practice a whole lot of Korean - with the "coveted" Seoul accent. He was extremely patient as I struggled to pronounce the evil evil double consonants that I fail to hear.

I also had the joy of teaching him phrases like "batti ridah" and "batti bwoy" and watching the reaction on a Guyanese man's face when he said it to him.

But wait.....look at this pic! those are batti ridahs if I've ever seen 'em. And thus me and the batti ridified man agreed that I was allowed to use the phrase batti ridah just that one time. And look at how the birthday girl's a champ!

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!
I'm doing a countdown to the Ecuador vs. South Korea game on May 16. I have a flag, a 2006 jersey, a faux Adidas jacket, an assortment of patriotic azul amarillo y rojo jewelery, and even face paint. Sorry Korea, but this time I want you to lose.

I am also taking a break from my weekly private language classes to focus on salsa - a woman only has so many hours in a day- but I did attend a language exchange event yesterday which was a great opportunity to meet some new people and practice my Korean. neeeEEEE.

부비부비 I've had enough! ㅠㅠ

Layers of pink chiffon, cute tiny little shuffling steps, delicate feminine giggling, large bows and ruffles, patent leather shoes and the general look I wore to church when I was four years old but on a grown woman... these are all things that rub me the wrong way, which already set me up to be pissed off by this commercial.

Call me a proper young lady, but there are certain things that make me cringe like nails on a blackboard because they seem so goshdarn inappropriate. One of those is the word "pee". I absolutely hate hearing people talk about how they are about to go pee. I strongly believe that everyone should just excuse themselves and be on with their business before returning to said social situation without any mention of the last five minutes of their life.

But what takes gross to a whole new level is the phrase 부비부비...which means grinding, whining, apegado, or dancing close. But it's worse. Korean has many onomatopoeic sounds such as chika chika for tooth-brushing, but bubi bubi is supposed to be the sound of two bodies rubbing together. One time in club, before approaching from behind, a Korean guy asked me, "Do you know Korean-dance 부비부비?" And Sunday nights at club Monkey in Daegu are designated 부비 nights.

Part of the reason this offends me so much is that 부비부비 is a term that uses cutesiness to refer to something sexual. This is just as repulsive as a man busting out some baby talk in the bedroom.

So imagine my utter horror and disbelief when I saw this cell phone commercial. My Korean co-worker says that it's okay that the phrase bubi-bubi is being used because of Ji-yeon's cute outfit and girlish look, complete with the decidedly juvenile floppy bow. "It's innocent because she looks cute." And if this cellphone has the "bump" bluetooth file transfer function, I suppose it is 1% more acceptable to say the b-word. But I am still grossed-out by the existence of the term 부비부비, and hope that it goes out of style real soon - a common trait of all fashion trends in Korea, so fingers crossed.

La Bendita's Easter Weekend

EASTER

When I woke up today, I found myself missing the excellent musical quality of the Mennonite church, and this familiar hymn was playing in my head. Here in Korea you wouldn't know it's Easter Monday, because it's the Cold Food Festival. I got a similar comfort from listening to the hymn as I get from hanging a rosary above my bed - I'm not a religious person, but these markers of culture and tradition help to create a sense of home. I also greatly miss my mother's Easter baskets that I have still been receiving in my 20s. Who doesn't love a chocolate bunny!

And speaking of things i miss, last Friday I really missed eating Fanesca, the Ecuadorian delicious thick soup eaten on Good Friday. My dad said, "cuando me sirva el segundo plato, vamos a pensar en ti." El segundo! Pero que amable! Since childhood, we have almost always gone to eat my Aunt Gladys' version, something that no amount of the best kimchi can ever replace.

(*.^)

The ginormous latin party Charanga for Chile is over. Hours of practice, promotion, and preparation went into this event that drew over 200 people and raised a few thousand dollars for the Chilean Earthquake Relief Fund. English teachers and university professors, Latino military, the Peruvian worker community, Brasilian dancers, Korean Spanish students, and others came out to dance and watch the show. You can see me in the black matte-yet-shiny capri leggings:

At the end of the night, we went for galbi (Korean BBQ) at 4am. A group of Korean university students got into a fight, where food was thrown and tables were pushed. My favourite moment was when a skinny guy menacingly grabbed a soju bottle and threatened to hit his friend in the head with it. Dinner and a free show! Don't mind if I do. The drama at the restaurant is probably why the Korean staff was so attentive when an unknown and extremely drunk foreign guy stumbled to the floor. He somehow managed to wear his converse into the restaurant - a major no-no when you sit on cushions on the floor. So the staff helped him take off his shoes and did him the favour of carrying them to the shoe lockers at the entrance. He eventually lay down and fell into a deep sleep. So people decided to have some fun. The staff assisted by bringing out empty cases of soju bottles.

(*.^)

Break time at work: Asha and I often walk over to a local coffee shop. We used to be able to walk across the street, but a few months ago a thigh-high barrier was erected as well as a light - that takes a good five minutes to change. I'm not the only one guilty of jay-walking: I saw our CEO do a running leap over the barrier once. Mysteriously, often traffic lights are green when pedestrians are not given the walk signal in the same direction. No turning signals - so I've always considered this a safe time to walk. I mean, I can dodge cars speeding down winding roads on Andean mountains, so I know I'm good. But today, a cop drove by on a motorcycle. He yelled at us through his paisley bandanna, to which I replied "외국인" (foreigner) while meekly shrugging my shoulders. That, my friends, is the "foreigner card".

And at the coffee shop, I ran into a Korean woman in her late 30s I always see at the gym. She complimented me on my S-line, and also pulled her jacket to the side to show off her own side-profile, to which I exclaimed, "와! 맞아요. 에쓰 라이느 있어요." (woah! That's right! What an S-line!"

(*.^)

Next up: Many weeks of late practices that cut into sleep were worth it but all of us dancers are tired - and we'll be taking a week off from salsa class to give people time to do their thing - my thing being a weekend in Seoul where I am excited to be meeting up with one of my mom's former high school ESL students, who is Korean and doing his co-op work term here, some CIDA intern friends, and distributing copies of Daegu Pockets to businesses featured in my past article on Seoul's latin scene.