Shots w/ the Boss

Gotta love coffee...

Pop Quiz:

Your a Principal and your having a going away party because you are going to another school. You decide to host a going away party for all of your administration and teachers. Once you arrive at the restaurant, which would you do:

A. Order one alcoholic drink for everyone who wants one.
B. Do not order any alcoholic drinks because you sense it is not appropriate to drink with your co-workers.
C. Order countless bottles of beer and Soju (essentially Korean Vodka, but a little weaker ~20% alcohol) and get piss-drunk while encouraging the rest of your staff to do the same. Afterward, take all the staff to a karaoke-room and continue to feed them alcohol.


If you choose A, you'd be a pretty typical American. If you chose B, you'd also still be a pretty typical American. If you choose C, you'd be an atypical American, and likely at the very least could be scolded and quite possibly even suffer some sort of formal disciplinary action.

But...In South Korea...Drinking with your Principal is not only completely normal (provided it is off school grounds and outside of school hours), but is also very much welcomed.

So, last night, at around 5:00PM I as well as the rest of the staff sat down for a traditional Korean dinner of Duck Bulgogi (Meat) and the booze began to flow.

Now, call me a square or what have you, but I really only accepted the first two drinks. Granted, it was a bit rude of me to not keep pace with my Principal (who by the way is a very well seasoned drinker), but waking up hung-over on a Tuesday morning and then having to teach all day is NOT my idea of a good time. So, I ate the delicious food, slowly sipped my drink, followed along to the karaoke-room afterward where I again fended off countless drink offers, and then around 9PM took off for home.

Hot damn, I think I just painted a picture of myself as a total straight. Eh, whatever. I wasn't in the mood to drink, and even if it is culturally acceptable to get faded in front of your boss, I couldn't really get over that hurdle.

Just as a side note. During orientation, I was talking w/ a Korean college student that i met, and I asked him if Korea (as a country) struggles with alcoholism. With a quizzical look on his face, he essentially asked me what I meant by "alcoholism." I tried to explain, and only was partially successful. Later in the same day I asked an American teacher who has been teaching here for a year already the same question, and he basically said the concept/word is used in Korea.


And, let me make this explicitly clear. I am not insinuating that anyone at my school is an alcoholic. I would not claim to know anyone here nearly well enough to make that claim. And moreover, even if I knew everyone intimately, I would still not be so bold as to think I could just casually toss around that label. Even further, everyone ALWAYS shows up for work. No one ever uses sick days, so go figure.

Just some food for thought.

P.S. Maybe I'm a coffee-holic? Quite likely ;-)