Duck or Dog?

Last night was pretty fun...mostly because of the company I kept. I recently met a couple of finance-types here in Yeouido (which isn't too hard to do, as it's referred to as Korea's Wall Street) who spoke pretty good English (which is a rarity here not only in Yeouido but everywhere in Korea). They had studied outside Korea and deal with international business...but still my brutal Canadian accent made it pretty tough for them to figure out what I was saying sometimes.

There was one time that their accent got in the way, though. When we went to the restaurant the guy (Junseok, the gal is named Hye-Kyung) asked: "Do you like deok?" I wrote it just as I heard it. I thought he meant dog (they eat that here) so I called his bluff and said, "Sure, let's go! What kind of dog?" "Oh no, deok, deok!" "Ya, dog?" "No, deok," he said again. Then I figured out that he meant 'duck' and said, "Oh, 오리 (oh-ri), duck! Not 개 (gay), dog! Why didn't you just speak Korean? I know 오리 and 개!"

The food was great, then we went to the obligatory 이차 (ee-cha, thanks Hye-Kyung for the correction) or second round. Koreans can never just go to one place to eat and drink. Usually we will wander the streets and go out to three, four or five places. A couple of weeks ago in Hongdae (university bar district here) we went to 4 places: the 산낙지 (san-nak-ji, living octopus) restaurant, Old Rock (cool bar), a 노래방 (noraebang, Korean word for karaoke) and finally clubnb (or noise basement) until the wee hours of the morning. (Personally I prefer the Kangnam version of clubnb, but since we were in Hongdae we went to that one.)

The coolest thing here about bar-hopping/pub-crawling is there is almost never a lineup and very rarely a cover (just in the clubs, never in bars). I think this is because people are always moving. In Canada if you get in a bar you never, never leave until you go home...which means those who want to get in have to lineup. Also, if a Korean is asked to wait (for anything, especially after a few drinks) they will just balk and leave...and no bar-owner would like that. Maybe that's why Koreans in general are moving around more and Canadians are so sedate (relatively...if you've lived in both places you know what I mean).

Update: looks like everyone wants to be on my blog...for some reason. Here are the pics of my gracious hosts of the evening.


Junseok, who works in International Business and has an MBA...he's trying to come up with a fitting Western name for himself, if you have one to suggest just leave a comment, please.


Hae-Kyung, who works with him. She too has an MBA (and from my wife's alma mater of Ewha Women's University, no less). Hae-Kyung is really good at English and is quite bright...and single (men, take note). She thinks her face looks like the moon, or 달덩이 (Daldeong-ee) as they say here, I guess so...