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.
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