Proper School Dinner

At the end of the 2013 school year I went with the other teachers on a hike and then to lunch and games.  I thought, “so, this is the ‘school dinner’ I have heard so much about.”  I remember thinking that it was fun, but that some of the stories I had heard were greatly exaggerated.

Never mind.

That was apparently not a proper school dinner.  I had my first proper school dinner last night.

It was a farewell dinner for several of our teachers.  One was retiring flat out and the others were transferring to new schools.  Korean public school teachers can only stay at one school a maximum of five years then they have to move on.  So, of course, there is a party to bid them farewell and wish them well.

If you must know about the food...and you must, because whether you want to or not I will tell you.  We went to a sushi restaurant in the city.  Now, in America, sushi is not my favorite thing...I like it alright, but I don’t enjoy the chewy seaweed wrap that you sometimes get.   Korean sushi is more like sashimi, and there were some cooked items as well.  LOTS of food.  We started off with the raw stuff...big platter of 4-5 different raw fish and you wrap it in lettuce with your sauce and some shredded vegetables in this kinda sweet sauce...very delicious!  Egg soup and steamed mussels, raw oysters, quail eggs (they just taste like eggs), 2 different cooked fish...salmon and some white fish, but they were both good.  What else?  Silk worm larvae, but there wasn’t any pressure to eat those so I didn’t...I will one day, but I was not feeling it last night.  So, I thought that was it for dinner...I’m feeling pretty full...but they bring out another soup with ramen noodles and rice.  And I have to eat that too.  Its a fish soup made with the, ugh, leftover parts and you drop the noodles in and boil it all together.  Then you eat it with your rice.  Honestly, I enjoyed it, but my god, I was already so full!

Now, on top of the food, there is the alcohol.  Soju and beer.  Lots of Soju and beer.  And you have to drink Korean-style.  “Pass the cup” as one teacher described it.  Someone comes up to you with their shot glass (or you go up to someone else), gives you the glass, pours a shot.  You turn slightly away, down it, return the glass and return the favor.  There is no place for germophobia in Korea!  Just to be fair, you don’t have to do alcohol shots...there were Fanta shots going on too, but mostly women.  One of my favorite teachers is leaving (he calls me “little sister,” how Korean is that!) and he sat down with me and gave me his glass, so I know what is going to happen.  He asks which one I would like (Fanta, beer, or Soju) and before I can answer he pours a shot of Soju for me.  So, I down my shot to a round of applause.  I am really going to miss him! :(

After 3 hours of dinner and drinking, some of the faculty headed to noraebang, but the teacher I rode with was ready to leave for home so I headed back to town.  I would have gone to the noraebang, but since my co-worker had gone out of her way to make sure I knew about and was able to go to dinner it seemed in poor taste to tell her no.  Besides, I was more than a little tipsy as it was and noraebang-ing usually involves a fair bit of alcohol on its own.