War Memorial Part 2

Last Friday I went back to the War Memorial of Korea so I could take pictures of the military hardware and sculptures. So I was pretty excited to see that it was a beautiful day. I grabbed my camera and headed to the museum with one of my friends from GW.

We got off the train and started walking to the memorial. All of a sudden 4 buses drove past us with a ton of military personnel in dress uniforms. Holy shit I thought to myself, what time is it. The Memorial has a military drill exhibition and military band performance every weekday at throughout the not wintertime, and apparently they had started to do the shows!

After taking a few pictures with the B-52 and helicopter, we noticed that the troops were assembling in the main courtyard area, so we hurried to the steps in front of the museum to get seats. The courtyard was a large stone circle flanked by flags and the rest of the museum. Pretty standard paved stone area. There were bleachers all around the courtyard , but the steps were front and center, at 6 o'clock (I will be using this numbering convention to describe locations) There were a ton of children and military personnel there. There was a Colombian army officer, a ton of RoK navy guys, some Korean troops serving with the US Army, and then some US soldiers there. It was about 1:15 when troops started coming out. But these were not just modern soldiers, there were traditional soldiers dressed like soldiers from ancient Korea. They had swords, spears, pikes, and HUGE battle standard. America has the Cassion at Arlington and the Continental Color Guard, but nothing older than the American Revolution. These dudes dressed like the guys who repelled a Japanese invasion in the 1400s. Pretty bitchin.

Samurai ain't got nothing

However, it looked really unpolished and shabby. No unison, and random songs playing in the background, and dudes still getting dressed. I was taking a ton of pictures but was curious what was going on. When I saw a RoK Marine colonel throw a pair of dress gloves to somebody, that's when I realized I had been taking a ton of pictures of rehearsal. I'd taken so many that my battery was down to one bar. WOOOOOOOOF. I was pretty pissed, I wanted to take a whole lot more pictures. Good thing my friend had his phone as a backup.

I don't know how the random dudes just mulling around in the middle of things wasn't a dead giveaway

At 2 PM the show REALLY started. Out marched a traditional Korean military band. They were dressed in yellow with large wide brim hats.These guys all looked like the man with the yellow hat(I'm a terrible person). The band had two kinds of drummers, cymbal players, some cool looking horns (both long and short), and conch shells. They sounded awesome. The horns had a very high pitched sound like a snake charmer's flute, and the drums produced one hell of a marching beat. They walked in, played the rest of their big song in the center of the courtyard, then marched in formation walked to the side of the courtyard and then marched out the 3 o'clock exit.

Curious George was nowhere to be found

Then came the traditional military procession. First were the standard bearers. They held huge flags with dragons, cranes and tigers on them. The flags were very colorful and the wind made them look pretty nice. They were followed closely by a group of spearmen who were then followed by a different group of spearmen.

Camouflage was not a priority back then

When the second group spearmen were at 6 o'clock directly in front of the audience they did some military drills. Swipes, spins, a few blocks. It was like in Mulan at the end of I'll Make A Man Out Of You when all the soldiers FINALLY get how to use their weapons. I know Korea isn't China, but I figure most of you have seen Mulan. If you haven't seen it, you may as well be working for the Huns.

Spear guys

Sword guys were next

Then different spear guys

At the end of the procession the group was split in half at 9 and 3 o'clock. The standard bearers were behind all the soldiers, and they all waited patiently.

Then out came the drill team. The colors were presented by men from each branch and led by a Marine officer. They were followed out by the groups from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Women's Drill team.

Army on the outside, then Navy, Air Force, and Women

Then they began doing the rifle tricks to the ultimate Korean pump up song, The Pirates of the Caribbean theme song. Holy crap. After Gangnam Style, this song has got to be Korea's unofficial national anthem. I've heard this played at KU events, Baseball games, parks, and now military functions. My goodness.

The spinning was pretty cool though

Then they marched off and the band came back on, this time led by their conductor.

Nobody tried to "Animal House" this parade though

They played a royal march, which sounded vaguely middle eastern, and did some stepping in formation to create a path for the king, and then spread out \ around the stands leaving some room for the next act, the traditional dancers and drummers. The male dancer had long white cloth hanging from his wrists which created a cool effect when he spun around and jumped to the beat. The drummers were also moving around almost as much as he was; jumping and spinning to the beat they were producing. Their drumsticks were also very interesting. They were held in a different for each grip for each hand, one was moved by flicking the wrist, producing a sound when the wrist was flicked forwards or backwards. The other was used like a traditional drumstick. The hand coordination was mind boggling.

Then came a comedy show I could not understand one bit. It featured a guy yelling at two guys in a tiger suit (Think a horse costume, but a tiger), fake hitting it with a whip, and asking it yes or no questions. The band played music for the tiger and man to dance to, but a lot was lost in the lack of translation. The crowd loved it though, and I really enjoyed watching what amounted to an ancient Korean Mexican talk show, but live.

The band even did the hilarious sound effects

Then the band exited again, as did the host and the tiger. The traditional soldiers, who were still waiting patiently on the sidelines, now got to play again. The crew then put out a ton of bamboo in front of the stage. This made me happy, some stuff was gonna get cut up right quick. Some fighting music came on and each group ran onto center stage for a longer demonstration. This time they actually fought! They clashed spear guys on spear guys, different spears on different spears, and swords on swords. It was very cool to see such well choreographed fighting, especially in fighting styles I hadn't really seen before. Medieval Times is kinda the same, and I've seen Braveheart. This was really cool. Then the two best spearmen came out and did a really long fight demonstration with a lot of ducking, jumping and spinning. It ended with one guy getting his spear taken from him and then getting "stabbed" through the stomach. I was not expecting that part, so I thought he just messed up and dropped his spear. Pretty crafty there Korean military.

The sword group before their fight, with the bamboo sticks waiting to be cut

Then three men with swords started chopping the hell out of the bamboo. Three cuts per stick, all of them clean cut. One guy even grabbed a piece, threw it up in the air, chopped the vertical one three times, and still managed to cut the airborne one in half with an upward swing. It was like a marksman competition, but with a sword. The bamboo was just getting slaughtered. Then there were four sticks lined up at an angle that he sliced through with one cut. It was unbelievable to see how sharp the swords were, and how there is indeed an aspect to fighting that was lost with the advent of the gun. Yes, trick shooting is IMMENSELY difficult, but I doubt many men will have to drop an enemy while shooting them backwards over their shoulder using only a mirror to sight their weapon. Being able to move your sword quickly helped kill AND please crowds. It's not that marksmanship isn't as difficult as swordplay, but cold steel has a different beauty than hot lead.

Then out came the Women's drill team. They were also accompanied by the fear instilling, commie killing, bloodthirsty mascots for each branch. The freakishly adorable Tiger, Wolf, Dolphin and Eagle mascots for Army, Marines, Navy and Air Force. But you can't deny you'd shit your pants if all of a sudden an anthropomorphic tiger started shooting at you.

Gangnam Style really does create fear in the hearts of the enemy

 So yeah, all the mascots came out first to Gangnam Style and were dancing and twirling their flags about in unison while doing the horse riding dance.






























Then the women came out. They started with rifles doing standard drill stuff; rifle twists, throws, spins, shoulder changes. The proverbial works.

 Then one girl did flags and started doing flag tricks while the rest kept up with rifle tricks. There was a definite majorette vibe coming from this team, but it was still pretty cool to watch.

 Gradually more women got flags, replacing their rifles for flags

Everybody loves the Red White and Blue

The women's group was overall pretty good, and they were also clearly selected for their looks. I guess if all the women in uniform looked like them, mandatory service would be a little more exciting.

Then came the BIG drill team, the main event.

There are lots of pictures, so I'm just gonna let you look at them when you're done reading.

Ok, so they came out, re-presented the colors, and then got right back to what they did best; playing the Pirates of the Caribbean song. Again. On Repeat. For 3/4ths of the program. They had sections where each section did a trick, or they did tricks from front to back, like rifle tosses. That was pretty cool. Then they did rifle spins in various stages of crouching so you could see the spin of each rifle's center. That was also really cool to watch because each guy had to hold a pretty rough looking squat angle and spin the rifle, which had a bayonet on the end. That's some muscle memory. Then they started doing different formations. They formed the crest of each branch, like crossed anchors for the Navy, the eagle star and anchor for the Marines, you get the picture. It would have been nice to see it from a high angle like the upper decks of a football game, but it was still cool to kind of see what they were trying to do. Then the top guy from each branch came out, did some aggressive rifle spins, really high rifle tosses, and some other big showboating tricks. The effects were kind of lost when one guy dropped his rifle, but whatever. I can't do any of these tricks, so I wasn't judging. He still recovered and did the toss again. The show must go on.

Then the main event happened; the wave. They lined up two by two along the diameter of the circle from 3 to 9 o'clock. Then they did tricks that started at one end and ended at the other, like the wave but with guns. They did the big crouch and aim, the stand and bayonet stance, the flip, the toss, and the highly unexpected blank shoot. The little plumes of smoke moving down the line, as well as the rifles' crack off the stone was a spectacle. It was a great show, and was only about 45 minutes. For the low low price of free, I was a pretty happy guy.

Here are assorted pictures from the day that I took.

Monument to the Korean War

All the people whose lives were impacted by the war

It wasn't just the men on the front fighting in that war

Me and a B-52

T-37C

The Korean Colors

Tanks

Unfortunately I still don't know how to say "Can I get your number?" in Korean

Spear guys

Onward!

Next to me, this mascot had the biggest shoes in the entire country

Beat Navy

Korean Girls and Old Ladies

I am editing this post because some of my readers found it sexist. Upon further review, this was true. So here's a better entry about Korean girls.

Again, I use the term girls because I do not consider students anywhere to be adults. We have homework. Grown ups don't have homework. Grown ups have bills. It's a trade-off.

Korean girls tend to be shy around foreigners, and more reserved in general. Ironically enough, my female Korean friends shared this insight with me. The engineers from KU coming to GW next semester are all girls, so I have been trying to make friends with them so I can answer as many questions related to student life as possible.  Also, I am trying to practice what little Korean I know as well as helping them practice their English. According to a few reports, they tend to be shy because they are nervous about their English ability and are afraid that I will judge them. I tell them that this couldn't be further from the truth, but their friends tend to remain unconvinced. The only person who wasn't at GW or isn't going to GW that talks to me is a girl in my circuit theory class who is friends with one of the GW bound girls. It has been really fun talking with them and learning about Korea and answering any questions they have about America. 

I try to debunk as many American stereotypes they have and sometimes tell them that they're actually true. They also all speak really good English. Like any second language, they miss the nuances and casual slang, just like I only speak EXTREMELY basic Korean without any nuance or shortcuts. For example, I don't really understand when I can use the shortened version of Korean hello, and they don't understand when I say something is "Messed up." 

Korean girls also react more strongly to certain facts about myself. They are astounded at my shoe size, a Korean 320. I have abnormally large feet for an American, so over here I feel like Andre the Giant. They are also very surprised that I am from New York, which they think is extremely dangerous. I try to explain that NY is the safest it's ever been, but that's kind of difficult to convey when all kinds of terrible things are happening in the US right now, whether it be bombings or explosions or stories of sexual assault. Don't get me wrong, NYC is no River City Iowa (Look it up), but it's not Mega City 1 from Judge Dredd. I tell them that people need to be smart wherever they go, and that no, not everyone in America has a gun. They also don't know about crime rates in Chicago, St. Louis, or LA. 

Korean girls are also much more concerned with appearance than American girls are. On the extreme side, there are hundreds of ads for cosmetic surgery in the subway. Before and after shots, enormous pictures of the medical team, even video ads for liposuction on the subway TV monitors. It's pretty prevalent. I've been unable to obtain a hard statistic on the percentage of Koreans who get plastic surgery, but it's not a small number. Lots of nose jobs and double-eyelid surgery for the most part; which aren't major surgeries. On the more reasonable side, Korean girls tend to check their makeup more often in class. They also tend to wear dresses and heels to class a lot. The heels seem unweildly because of the hills on campus, but they're really good at moving in them. I've seen girls run half a block just so they didn't miss the walk signal at the intersection. That's some coordination. It's a lot more business casual and preppy here when it comes to dressing for everyday activities for both genders, but it seems like a whole lot more work for women. However, there's another side to Korean women's fashion. Either a leather, denim, or KU varsity jacket with leggings and short shorts and a pair of converse (sometimes high heeled) or other sneakers. They also sometimes wear a flat brim MLB hat. It's a fairly contrasting approach to fashion which I find hilarious because that, together with the preppy look, are pretty much Sandy's outfits in the movie Grease. If you haven't seen Grease, come on, really? Really?

Older Korean women are TOTALLY different. They tend to wear whatever the hell they want, as long as they have a big plastic visor on and a really bright 80s track jacket. They also all have jew-fro haircuts. It's unclear when this transformation occurs, but I have seen very few 30-50 year old women. They're either 25 and under or 75 and over. The older women also tend to be surprised when I do nice things for them or others in public. Sometimes when I hold a door they look at me like I had two heads, or when I give them my seat on the subway they laugh and say thank you and then their friends all laugh and I hear the word foreigner in Korean a few times. I'll take the laughter as a compliment because making old people laugh is really fun. It means that even though they've seen about 50 years more of the same shit I've been looking at, I still did something original enough to warrant a response.

Dudes

As an American guy (I still feel strange calling myself a man. I'm 19. I don't have a car, my own apartment, bills to pay, nor a job), it is interesting to look at male culture in Korea. There are some similarities, but the differences outnumber the similarities. Also, the similarities are highly Koreanized versions of things overall, it's nothing shocking, just really different.

Ok, let's start with KU's gender breakdown. KU is only 38% female. I don't want to talk about the percentage in the engineering school, ESPECIALLY in mechanical engineering. It's so bad that when I told my Korean friend that GW is almost 50-50 guys girls, he just sighed and said, "Paradise." Yeah, it's like South Pacific over here, except there are indeed dames. Dames with boyfriends, which is almost worse than entire lack of women. The odds for the individual guy are low, but the girls have the pick of the litter. There are 5 girls in my 62 person Thermo class, and 4 of them are conservative Muslim. So that's effectively 1 girl with 57 candidates to choose from. That would be long season of The Korean Batchelorette, but I bet the audience would learn a lot about heat transfer (Zoom, Zoom, Zoom!) However, there is a balancing factor to the inequality: a nearby women's university. I have yet to go out in that neighborhood at night, but I sincerely hope that it's like the scene in Animal House when they go to pick up Fawn from her dorm. Again, if you don't get that reference, step out of the mine shaft you grew up in, and be a real movie watching American.

Ok, back to male culture. Most of you already know this, but Korea has mandatory military service. If one is medically restricted, they work for the state doing clerical work, bureaucratic jobs or other things. For the most part, Korean men serve about 2 years in the military. This means about half of my classmates are 2 years older than me. Unlike America, not everyone is as, "High Speed" as my ROTC friends would put it, as I expected them to be. I mean yeah, pretty much anyone who's been in uniform can drink with the best of em, regardless of nationality, but they aren't as macho or as militarily mannered as their American counterparts. No tattoos with the RoK Marine emblem, no permanent dog tag tattoos, no veteran hats like some Americans wear. I guess when everybody's done it nobody really notices. However, some things are the same. According to one of my professors, her husband still tells stories of on base antics and tales of training with his fellow soldiers. Hell, I was out drinking and saw 5 of the single rowdiest men I have seen in my entire life. They were at least 70. They were pounding pitchers and chain smoking in a restaurant where smoking was CLEARLY prohibited. Two of them started screaming at each other, then stopped, stood up, saluted, said some stuff in Korea, and then screamed "MARINES!" The pride may not be trumpeted to the public, but your brothers will always be your brothers; it doesn't matter if other people know. This may explain why some of my classmates at KU aren't the same as my ROTC classmates back at GW, but I really don't know. I don't speak enough Korean to ask them.

Also, the fashion. Holy shit, it's like living in Brooklyn. A better dressed, somewhat poorly translated, Asian Brooklyn. For starters, the majority of Korean men are very slim. Being in the military for 21 months will get you in shape, and the low fat diet of rice, lean meat, seafood, coffee, and cigarettes will keep weight off. Generally speaking, this keeps the door wide open for any and all fashions. A guy with my build has a hard time pulling off skinny jeans because regular fit jeans fit like skinny jeans on me. There are a lot of slim fit pants of all colors. Also, the colored pants. If it's a color, it exists on Korean pants. Maroon? Sky blue? Mint green? That weird color gold? Creamsicle? You bet. All jeans, slacks, hell even capris. Yeah, dudes here wear capris, more on that later. I like the colored pants. I think they're goofy and when worn in coordination with the right shirt, the look is actually pretty good. The guys also regularly wear blazers to class. Not fancy with brass buttons, but an unfinished blazer, sometimes with strange pocket or collar fabric, and the occasional egregious number of buttons on the front or sleeves. Fashion's a weird weird world I cannot understand, but these Korean dudes get it. They also wear a lot of MLB and NBA gear, mainly from big teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, Lakers and Knicks. The other big draw is the MLB teams with Korean players. I'd be pretty jazzed if one of my fellow countrymen was internationally recruited to compete in the highest competitive level for a sport.

I'll admit, I've significantly stepped up my act when it comes to dressing for class. I usually wear jeans, a button down and a sweater. I ditch the sweater if it's warm, but I keep the shirt tucked in. I guess my dad's loved of tucked in shirts rubbed off on me. However, the high pants trophy is still his, and will be until I put my 4th kid through college. Then I have the right to do whatever I damn well please, like wear slippers to the store. (Hi pop). I rarely wear a T shirt, and if I do it's because I'm running late or am just running to the store to get some breakfast or hungover lunch. The 8AM Calc Recitation casual of a sweatshirt with no shirt underneath, sweatpants, and a pair of flip flops,  all hastily thrown on at 7:55AM is no longer a thing. I get up early for the sole purpose of looking good. It may seem shallow, but I'm just trying to blend in in the smallest way. It's even made me more confident when talking to others, despite being still below average in terms of Korean wardrobe class. I can't pull off the casual blazer over a t-shirt, nor can I pull off a vest. I can however pull off the colored pants. My Korean friends call them very Korean, but little do they know I got them at Kohl's. The less they know, the more I Kohl's.

Here's the part of Korean male culture that I really don't understand. I don't get the  femininity of it. Now I know that I'm no proverbial Gaston. I don't have biceps to spare, I don't use a spittoon and I only use antlers in most of my decorating. I also really fucking love Kakao Talk emoticons and have seen the Sex and the City movies. So yeah, some could say I'm in a glass house, so be it. I'm not hucking stones. I just really don't understand the lengths Korean dudes go through to look good by the Korean standard. Also, I don't understand platonic male hand holding. On a team it shows unity and family, but it's kind of weird when I see two dudes doing it on the street here in Korea because in a country so against homosexuality, I find it surprising that two dudes holding hands can fly. Not all Korean men are gay, but hand holding is a sign of affection here in Korea as well. Weird. Also, lots of guys dye and curl their hair. Yeah, I go to a salon to have my hair done back in America, but I don't get the foil in my hair, nor do I get bright pink curlers put into it. But the shampoo and massage beforehand are so nice... A lot of them. Brown, red, a few platinum blonde. I don't get it. I guess it's hard to stand out when everybody's hair is naturally black, but by american standards it's pretty girly unless you're going prematurely gray. Korean guys also really like tight fitting pants. No. Sorry, just no. Male Camel Toe is unacceptable across the globe. I don't want to see the outline of anybody's penis when they sit down. Nope. I can't abide by that style. I also can't abide by the hot pants and capris. Those are lady clothes or beach clothes or 70s basketball clothes. By hot pants I mean a pair of shorts that have less than a 7 inch inseam. And capris... just no. I can KIND OF understand the rolled jeans and crazy socks look because it's funny, but capris seem really feminine. Hell, there was a unisex section of clothing in a store I went to today. There were pants and shirts. That surprised me most. In America that would be called cross dressing, which is usually only accepted for Halloween or high school Spanish class video projects. But shit, this was a section written on the store map. I don't know why it kind of bothers me so much. It's not that they look better than me, most people in America already do and I don't get pissed at their clothing. When I objectify the situation,  I for sure sound like an enormous homophobe. I don't want to sound homophobic in this section, I very truly don't . I just can't help sounding like a 1960s PSA narrator who goes like "Here's Jimmy, who dresses like a good patriot ought to." I just want the guys here to stop being so shy and be more like the t-shirt wearing and hooting barbarians that I call my countrymen. I am sorry if I offended you, contact me if you were offended.

Baseball Round 2

Ok, so I went to another baseball game yesterday afternoon. It was pretty awesome again, and we had some decent seats in the upper deck. By upper deck I mean directly behind home plate, but a story up. We had a great view of the field and could see everything, including the cheerleaders and jumbotron this time.

The first difference I noticed was the entrance: It had a ramp and wasn't just a door in the back of the stadium. We had to walk up the ramp, show and then scan our tickets, and then walk up another ramp to get to our seats. On our way there, there were a ton of food stands, some with french fries, lots with coffee, and one with delicious rice balls (more on that later). There was also a Bears shop, cell phone accessory Kiosk, a KFC, BK and GS 25 all next to each other in this main plaza. There was also a full Dunkin' Donuts there, for all your ballpark coffee needs.

We then walked up our ramp to our seats, which were the yellow seats. There were KFCs, BKs and GS25s all around the deck. This was actually a nice change from having to leave the stadium to get food, now we could eat without having to get stamped. Also, the lines were much shorter when you have two convenience stores less than 50 meters from each other. AND the prices inside the stadium were no different than outside the stadium. It was heaven.

The cheers when the Bears are at home were different because the Bears got their walk up songs. Those were pretty funny. In the Ayer by Flo Rida, a Blink-182 song, and AXEL-F from Beverley Hills Cop, and a few other crazy songs. These songs were hilarious because they were very unexpected, and it was also pretty funny to hear Koreans pronounce "Ayer" because the hard R sound doesn't exist in the Korean language. There were also two new cheers to the tune of the song The Smurfs sing (The one where they go La-La), and Mary Had a Little Lamb. Two songs that do not bring getting pumped up to mind. But I have no right to judge because I have no idea what the lyrics meant. As an American however, if The Smurfs song came on, I'd probably be too preoccupied with Gargamel's plots than to keep my eye on the ball.

The Lotte Giants, the visiting team from Busan also had cheers to Pretty Woman, We're Not Gonna Take It, and best of all the verse from Cum on Feel the Noize. Not the chorus, the verse. It took me forever to pick out the tune, but the "I don't know why, I don't know why" eventually popped into my head. Why pick the verse to a hair metal song whose title is the chorus? It made very little sense, but seemed to keep the Giants team fired up.

I got hungry and went to the rice ball stand for food. I really didn't want to spend a lot of money on Burger King, which was cheaper in America, so I decided to get more Korean ballpark food. This time I was somewhat disappointed, then excited. I got 5 pre-selected rice balls for 11,000 KRW, which comes out to $9.90. Not too bad for a shitton of food. The reason I got disappointed is because the first one I had was the anchovy rice ball. There were a ton of those guys inside that rice ball, which was about the size of a tennis ball. I just wasn't expecting to eat about 50 whole little fish at a baseball stadium, but now I know for next time. The Spam one was delicious, as were the kimchi and tuna ones.

Also, there was a Kiss Cam. This was actually pretty unexpected. I see Korean couples holding hands all the time, but not nearly as many public kisses. Lots of that stuff is kept behind closed doors or done in clubs, so I was pretty surprised about this. There were also only 3 kisses shown, all with people who were clearly couples. None of the awkward hand waves and nopes from the woman while the guy looks all sad (those are the WORST to watch by the way). They all seemed pretty reluctant to kiss, but eventually did so. Then there was a commercial for a bank featuring the kiss cam where a girl kissed a cute guy she wasn't there with. RACY!!! At least for Korea.

Then there was the best competition ever. They found two cute single women, one from each team's fan section, gave them a beer and a straw and had a chug off on the jumbotron. The stadium was going nuts, I was going nuts, and these women were destroying beer through a straw. It was hilarious. Of course, the Bears won the contest and the winner got a 30 rack of Cass beer. I am never coming home. This country is magical.

Then there was the obligatory part where the cheerleaders did an extremely sexy dance to the new Sistar song. If you don't know Sistar, look them up. You won't be disappointed. They were wearing the "Risky Business" outfit; a dress shirt and seemingly no pants. In the middle of the dance they took off the shirts to reveal a REALLY short dress underneath. Judging by the cheers from the crowd at that moment, there are some things all men on earth enjoy.

Aside: Have women seen Risky Business? Do they know it's about Tom Cruise becoming a pimp and running a whorehouse out of his suburban home to cover the damages sustained to his parents' Porsche? I find it ironic that girls not only cross dress, but also dress as a pimp in order to be sexy.  But hey, that's just me being a weird lover of 80s movies and the crazy world of women's Halloween fashion.

TL;DR-
Korean baseball has some weird ass cheers, a shitton of beer, lots of cute women and and lots of cute beer drinking women. America can learn a thing or two from our allies on the peninsula.

North Korea

As most of you already know, North Korea has been talking up a storm about its military plans to destroy America and Seoul and all that jazz. And up until now I've been pretty calm about everything. The North loves to be crazy and wacky with its repression, human rights violations and blatant inaccurate propaganda, but we've all laughed it off as being nothing but a sad sad commie joke.

But shit's starting to get kinda real over here right now. They've allegedly moved missiles to the launch pads in preparation for another test and are doing pretty much everything of pulling their dicks out and shaking them at the DMZ. I'm not gonna lie, I'm a little bit worried. I know the last people to mess with America were hit with an overwhelmingly superior force in terms of numbers, training and technology, but I don't know what's gonna happen if the North goes for it so-to-speak. I know I have guaranteed evacuation if it all hits the fan, but how good is that word if there's a war going on. I don't really know.

To my parents, sorry if I'm scaring you, but I'm just thinking out loud here. I'm not coming home until the US government tells me to. When Uncle Sam says "Come on home," trust me, I will. Until then, I've got homework that needs putting off. I'll see you all in July.

Korean Baseball

This Friday night my friends were looking for something to do since the weather was nice. It was about 65 out today, so it was perfect weather for jeans and a t-shirt. Apparently Koreans really like being warm, because a lot of people were still wearing winter coats. We had originally planned on going to a baseball game next weekend, but since we were looking for something, we decided to go. The stadium was a bit of a train ride away, but whatever, it was subway accessible. What more could a cheap college kid like me ask for?

Seoul has quite a few baseball teams, and two share a park. The two teams are the Doosan Bears and the LG Twins. The teams are each sponsored/owned by a corporation. My friends and I decided to be Bears fans because they're a good team, and Doosan is fun to say.

The train station was called "Sports Complex" in English, and the name was fitting. There were baseball bat shaped benches, some sporting good stores, it seemed pretty sporty. Then we saw our first stadium gear vendor: The guy selling thunder sticks. Thunder sticks, if you don't know, are the inflatable sticks you bang together to make noise with. They are a lot cooler when an entire stadium has them too because if just one person has them it's really annoying.

We got out of the subway and the street is packed. There are women selling hard liquor, dried fish, beer and snacks off of tables lining the sidewalk. There's also a REALLY long line. Ouch. We then realized that we had no idea what the line is for, so we prayed that it wasn't the ticket window. It was not. It was a line for an air hose so you could inflate your thunder sticks. We then made our way to the ticket window, which also had a really long line. Woof.

We saw that there was a sign for a second window and decided to try our luck there. The ballpark was different than American ballparks because the majority of the food was on the outside perimeter of the stadium. You didn't need tickets to eat stadium food, which was pretty cool. Also, the stadium food was KFC, Burger King, and a convenience store that only sold tall boys, chips, ice cream, hot dogs, corn dogs, and Korean spicy rice cakes. The prices were also the same as the prices in the city. No outrageous mark up. It was truly heaven. The tickets were the only bad part of the game. We wanted to sit in the red seats, which were the 3rd best seats, right behind the home plate seats with table service (restaurant food and drinks) and dugout seats. They would have cost us a whopping... $10. This section starts at the beginning of 3rd and first base for each side. Unfortunately these seats were sold out, so we were forced to sit in the outfield. Thus bringing our cost of entry to $8. We walked into the stadium, had our tickets taken and proceeded to look for some seats.

The seating was totally different than seating in America. Primarily because the sport isn't as big, but also because the stadiums are newer and the game is played differently.

As you can see, the outfield seats are very close to the actual outfield and don't extend up super high. The outfield is just a big set of bleachers. Which is awesome. No hard numbering on your seats, you sit where you want to and that's that. Score. The Korean national anthem had just come on when we got to the stadium, so we stood for that found our seats, and then sat down just in time for the first pitch.

We then saw how the cheering here worked. The cheers were led by each team's cheerleaders, and each team had general songs and some unique ones. And these cheers were insane, and not just because I can't speak Korean. Firstly, they all involved the thunder sticks. Instead of claps, you used the sticks for the noise, and then as cool bright pointers for gestures and dances. It was pretty cool to see a whole section moving together. Secondly, some of the cheering was in English. A common cheer was Home Run ________ with the player's name after that. Thirdly and most importantly, the cheers used American songs with Korean words. Some songs that played were Surfin' USA, Who Let The Dogs Out, MMMBop, the Pirates of the Caribbean theme song, It's a Small World and Pomp and Circumstance (The Graduation Song). We all laughed pretty hard when the songs came on, then got really sad that we didn't know any of the words except for "Home Run." We were also very sad that we didn't have thunder sticks. I mean, you would be too if you had this rowdy group yelling stuff at the field. Also, this was the 1st inning. People were still showing up.

The Bears' side of the stadium

Shawn with the goods

The people in our section also weren't too into the mass cheering, so we kinda missed out. However, it was still cool to watch. Then a guy with a keg strapped to his back started making his rounds. Being of legal drinking age in Korea, we figured we'd try the ballpark beer. We got one each and gave the guy 10,000KRW. We got three beers and 1000KRW change back. What. If I wanted a beer at an American ballpark I'd get carded and I'd need to give the guy a $20. This guy saw my three fingers, walked up to us and just gave us some ice cold beer. And it wasn't bad for Korean beer. Not that I've ever had beer before Mom and Pop...

A view of the field from our seats

A view of other seats from our seats

By about the 4th inning it had started to get dark out. The stadium was chilly, but I was fine in jeans and a button down. At this time we noticed that the guys in front of us were watching TV on their phones. Apparently one can get satellite TV on their phone here in Korea, so about every other person was also watching the game on TV. I think of people in America who bring the radio to the ballpark to hear the calls and now it seems we live in the baseball stone age. I kind of like the radio more; it makes no sense to go to a ballpark to watch a game on TV. But it was still pretty cool to see some instant replays.

Also, the stadium had filled up a lot by now. Latecomers were pretty common.

A big box of KFC seems like a pretty good ballpark snack

This is the Bears' section with more people

Also, Korean baseball teams have cheerleaders. If you read my earlier blog post about the KU cheerleaders, there are a few similarities and differences. Firstly, the baseball cheer squad is lead by a man wearing a players' uniform. He leads the cheers with yells and does some badass sky punches, just like the KU master wizard or whatever his official title was (he did have flowing robes...). However, the rest of the team is female, extremely attractive, and scantily clad., just like Abner Doubleday intended. There are about 4 or 5 women on the squad. We were sitting pretty far away from them, so I couldn't really tell. The guy with the white pants near the guy in the orange shirt is the male cheerleader, so I couldn't get too good a look other than when they came on the Jumbotron.

As far as the game went, it was a little more eventful than american baseball. Not as many pop outs, a whole lot more hits, and a lot more walks. The Twins walked 7 people, yet the Bears gave up about 15 hits. The pitching wasn't unbelievable, and there were also a whole lot of errors. I could hear my dad screaming "Body in front!" whenever an infielder failed to pick up a grounder. There was also the worst error you could see, an outfielder collision. 2 Bears players ran into each other on a pop fly. It was pretty bad too. The whole training staff came onto the field

And then an ambulance came

 But the guy got up and walked it off, because baseball isn't soccer and men are men. It also reminded me that there is no way to run down the clock in baseball, you need to throw every pitch and get every out. There's no way around it.

All the errors were making me hungry so I decided to go get some food. My friends brought me back the Bulgogi Whopper from BK (It was just OK), but I was still hungry. I went outside and there was a stand selling Korean food. I got my favorite, spicy rice cakes. They were delicious, but kind of hard to eat while cheering. There was a lot of sauce left at the end and I really wanted rice to soak it up. I guess it's the American in me that thinks every sauce is gravy that needs to be soaked up and eaten, but trust me, this stuff was too good to waste.

The lady made them fresh!

The 7th inning stretch was also the 6th inning stretch at Jamsil Stadium. Again, we all laughed at the tiny difference, as well as the grounds crew. There was a golf cart with a big electric LG sign on the hood that was pulling one of the mats to smooth out the dirt. It was also being driven pretty erratically so the guys running with the mats had to pick up the slack. We also noticed that there was no tarp in foul territory. It rains a lot in Korea, so this surprised me.

When the 7th inning started, cards came out in addition to the thunder sticks. The cards were used in cheers and they said "GO!" and some other stuff written in Korean. Nobody in the bleachers had them, so we just laughed when Baha Men came on and hoped that the Twins screwed up in the end so that the Bears would win.

The Twins side had a whole lot more cards and some better cheers 

The Bears were down by 1 run in the 9th inning. After they got the last out of the 8th, the stadium started erupting. Then the Jumbotron started blasting ominous music and showing pictures of people holding black jerseys. The Twins' colors are Maroon and White, not black, so we were kind of puzzled. Then it had a video of strikeout after strikeout after strikeout. More black jerseys, more ominous music, more of the same pitcher striking batters out. After some deductive reasoning, we determined that the LG Twins had Korean Mariano Rivera. He was there to put the final nail in the coffin. And that's just what he did. He threw some great pitches and the Bears went down looking. You hate to see that.

Everybody started filing out of the stadium, and right as I stood up I felt something hit my back and then I felt my back get wet. Someone had hucked a full beer at me. I looked behind me and there was a pretty drunk twins fan and her boyfriend. The guy kept saying sorry while his girlfriend couldn't really stand too well. He gave me a ton of napkins and a wet wipe, and I used my limited Korean to say "It's alright." Plus, they wasted a perfectly good beer. Their loss.

I'm going back to Jamsil to see the Bears play again on Saturday, so hopefully I'll have some more pictures then. Korean baseball is a little small time, but it's been on every TV I've seen in public. I'm just waiting for a T-Shirt cannon to give me a shirt that would have fit me in 5th grade.