Feeding the boyfriend -- a lesson

I suppose there was a bit of bad planning involved – to schedule a hiking trip during the first weeks of rainy season, when the weather tries it best to bend you to its will.

It had been raining pretty steadily for the last two weeks, and the idea of trudging around in the muck wasn’t especially appealing, compared to my nice, dry, air conditioned apartment. But I’d promised Kiana more than a month ago that I would go, and I’m a woman of my word. Besides, this would be my first weekend trip with solely Koreans – no other foreigners – and I was excited for my authentic Korean weekend experience.

If there was one theme of the weekend, it was not “rain,” but “food.”

I guess I should have known. I guess part of me did know. When Asian people congregate, even if it’s just in pairs, there will be consistent and constant eating. There will always be food available.

The four in my party – Kiana, my boss at Woosung Vocational School where I teach an adult speaking class, and her friends Gina, Miss Jo and a man who went by 11 – had arrived in the port town of Tongyong earlier in the day. Because I had to work, I couldn’t join them until after 9 p.m., but they’d kindly waited for me to dine.

Crowded into 11’s sparse, two-roomed apartment, we dug into roasted pork, kim bab (Korean sushi rolls) and the usual smorgasbord of side dishes. Seeing as I was the wei gooken (foreigner) newbie, I was given a lesson in how to feed your boyfriend.

“You must lay the pork in the leaf, with a slice of garlic and a little bit of red chili paste,” Kiana instructed. “Now, you must wrap it up tightly, so he can eat it all in one bite. Dip it into the sauce, and now say, ‘Opa, ah!’”

“Opa,” literally means “big brother,” but is used as a term of endearment for boyfriends. I turned to a blushing 11, and obediently followed Kiana’s instructions, placing the little morsel of food in his mouth as the ladies cracked up.

“No, that one had too much sauce,” Kiana scolded. “Do it again.”

I suppose as the token foreigner, I’d be receiving such bits of humiliation all weekend, but I didn’t mind.

After watching a devastating World Cup game, we all turned it – the five of us sleeping side by side on the floor. Because of the danger of fan death and the public perception that open windows will cause colds, the five of us slept in an unventilated room. The air was so thick the next morning you could have taken a bite out of it.

Now I’m not much of a breakfast eater, but you can’t really tell Koreans you’re not hungry. So we all gathered around the little table ladling out bowls of ramyeon noodles and kimchi for our morning meal before piling into 11’s car and setting off for the ferry terminal and Yokji Island.