This is what my Korean Co-Teacher bought me on Thursday. He is very nice. I was on my 6th and last class of the day and the food I brought just wasn't enough. I asked him if he had any snacks because I was really hungry. I got food from three different workers in the same class, and none I would eat unless I was trapped in a warzone and this was what was dropped from a relief plane. However, it would not be dropped from a relief plane because this is not food.
That is only a slight exageration. However, I don't think my great-great grandmother would recognize this as food.
Okay, I'll admit it that when a student handed it to me I was amazed by it. I've seen some variation of hot dog in a roll in the Czech Republic in a bread bin, sold whole sale that a friend of mine) who I considered a very smart intelligent and charming person) loved to eat.
But this surpassed it. The bun was glossy. How can a bun be glossy? Colors of everything were neon and the mayonaise looked cheesy in texture. My students in my extra class were practicing their speaking dialogues for a acting session I planned for them so I had time to snap some pictures.
One of my students saw the bun and with a pained looked on his faced begged me to give it to him. I said, "You want it? Okay take it."
I was happy to get pass the food to someone else.
"Really?", he said, maybe suprised that I would give up food that is delicious.
I snapped a picture of him eating it and then three students tried to grab it away and then 3 became 7 and he was swamped by students trying to get every bit of food. I stood there amazed by the irony that in a country with such healthy traditional foods that the kids would fight over the cheapest stuff available. I know that such an observation could be called nieve when a lot of kids and people would eat anything. Still, I feel its important to still recognize irony when I see it. The friends stopped fighting. The boys opened he mouth and he hand fed the other boys. Such a difference between American boys and Korean boys was stark. I felt good that at least some things about the society haven't changed with the introduction of Western culture.
I successfully avoided eating junk food when five minutes later another co-teacher came in with a moon pie. So I passed this along to another hungry student.
My co-teacher who gave me the hotdog bread asked me if I got the food.
"Yes, it was delicious. Thank you very much," I said.
Such lying is typical for me these days when it comes to western inspired Korean junk food gifts.
I can verify your comment about grandmothers:
ReplyDeleteA while back, I spent a week at Geochang farm school, hanging out with ajossis who wanted to learn how to go back to the land and grandmas who had never left it. After a few hours of picking weeds among gochu plants, one ajossi opened up a bag of snacks, which included some ridiculous pre-cooked, pre-wrapped burgers. The grandmothers immediately dove in to the makkeoli and cream-bread snacks, but it took about ten minutes for the ajossis to explain to them the concept of ready-to-eat hamburger, and even then, the grandmas wouldn't have any.