The Iceberg

Passing through the campus in a taxi, I spotted two female students walking along the side of the road. I stuck my head out the window and hung my wiry plastic fingers over the door. The taxi driver picked up on my intentions and slowed down as we approached the girls. Engaged in conversation, the girls cast a casual glance my way, then did a double-take, followed by a loud shriek that continued until the taxi was no longer within hearing distance.

Perhaps the taxi driver was wrong. Earlier, when I entered the taxi, I looked at his grinning face and asked him if I looked scary. “If you were alone, yeah. But since you are with the others (my co-workers), not really,” he told me. Judging from the girls’ reaction, I concluded that I had the look I was going for. Puhahahahaha!!!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we were going to a Halloween party at a bar called Yellow Monkey, but on a whim I suggested that we spend a little time out and about town before the party. Our first stop was a grilled pork (삼겹살) restaurant called Twaerang (퇘랑) in Yeoseo-dong (the “new” downtown of Yeosu) for some galmaegl-sal (갈매기살). If you ever make your way to Yeosu, I highly recommend this restaurant. The galmaegi-sal is fantastic. I’m told that it’s pork, but you’d swear that it’s beef. And at 7000 won per serving, it’s a great deal.

But I digress. We got out of the taxi (the taxi driver giggled as he took our money; I think he wished he could hang out with us) and made our way to a convenience store for cigarettes. Walking along the road, we were greeted by stares. Not the typical look that foreigners get and not really anything that expressed fear, but more like a “what are these nutty people up to?” kind of stare. Finally someone blurted, “Oh! Halloween!!!” and we knew they were on to our game.

I’d say that there were about forty patrons in the restaurant. When we entered, about thirty-five of them turned to look at us. Then about ten phone cameras swung open and the photo-taking commenced. We received a variety of comments. Nearly all of them positive. One older man typed something into his phone and then approached the woman in our group. He showed her his phone. “Give me a city map,” read the message. We didn’t quite know what to make of that. He was pretty drunk, and a bottle or two of soju later he was looking at me in a way that made me just a little uncomfortable. I started to suspect that he didn’t realize that I was a man. Yikes!!!

After dinner, more photos, and a few handshakes, we meandered over to Wa Bar, which I think I also mentioned in an earlier post is about the swankest bar in Yeosu. Again, we were greeted by a mix of positive comments and a few startled reactions. Inside the bar, more photos taken with phone cameras. Two girls came to our table and sat down and had their photo taken with us.

We finished our beers and left for the party. I must say that the party itself was the lowlight of the evening. Not that it was bad per se. It’s just that, compared with the rest of the evening, it didn’t have much to offer. I don’t know, maybe for the foreigners who’ve only lived in this area it was kind of nice to have a large gathering, but for me it felt no different than a typical Saturday night at Gecko’s in Seoul. Everyone wearing costumes notwithstanding.

After a couple of hours at the party our group decided to go to a nightclub. This was the most fun of all. Upon my first venture onto the dance floor, the phone cameras once again came flying out. I was surrounded by people who took momentary breaks from their dancing to capture shots of me. It felt like I was surrounded by paparazzi. I tell ya, these gweesheen types just can’t get any privacy. When everyone had their fill of photos, I was able to do my gweesheen groove - which is not easy in a costume that was way too large.

To answer the question, “Can gweesheens pull?”, let me just say that everytime I went out to dance there was one particular girl who, apparently attracted to gweesheens (or so I thought), gyrated her way towards me. Showing her my supernatural swing, I asked her if she wanted to join us at our table. Her answer? “No.” That’s it. No hesitation. No, “No, thank you.” No, “Thanks, but I’m with my friends.” Just, “No.” Humiliated, I made my way back to the table and vowed that I would haunt this girl for the rest of her human life.

Now, concerning the video. All I can say to that is, “Good help is hard to find.” The aim for the night was to capture my interactions with people around town. Since it was essential for me to be in the video, I enlisted the help of one of my co-workers to do the shooting. Unfortunately - and I’m putting this nicely - he apparently had a love-hate relationship with the zoom button the whole night. The first ten minutes that he shot (which would have been the best footage) were taken with the lens zoomed completely in, so all he got were a lot of close-ups of people’s eyes and nosehair. However, I managed to weed through it and compile a little bit to show. I zoomed it out twice for him only for him to zoom it back in. In the end, I had to take the camera away from him. He’s been banned from future camera priveleges.

Click photo for video