Have you ever been to one of those places that is sort of like a singing room, but instead of individual rooms you sing in front of all the customers? I’m not talking about 단란주점, where you are usually provided the company of hostesses. The place I’m talking about is a drinking and singing establishment and nothing more.
Two of my co-workers and I sought out one of these places about a week ago. We wanted something different from the usual singing room experience. I had been to one of these places in Seoul a few years back and found it to be a lot of fun. Not only that, I discovered that if you sing a Korean song you end up drinking for free the rest of the evening (because appreciative customers make sure your soju or beer glass is full).
The place we found was a little different, however. Whereas the one I went to in Seoul was basically a hof with a stage, this one had a dingy basement-like atmosphere to it. There were three circular bars situated in different corners with one ajumma serving at each bar. In the middle of the room there was an area for customers to dance while at the front there was a stage with a singing machine, an electric keyboard, and an electric guitar.
We chose the circular bar where no customers were seated (the others had two or three customers each) and tried to order three bottles of beer. Naturally, the ajumma wanted us to order a side dish with our beer. We explained to her that we had just had dinner and weren’t hungry, but as a compromise we’d order six beers up front. She hemmed and hawed before the ajushi running the joint came over and told her it was okay.
Waiting for our beers, we flipped through the songbook. The pickings were slim. I chose a song and waited for my turn. The ajumma brought out six bottles of beer and opened one of them. She started to fill each of our glasses with the first bottle of beer when I explained to her that we’d each rather have our own bottles. She nodded and opened two more bottles and poured the individual bottles of beer into our glasses, then poured a glass for herself. We smiled at each other and figured, “alright, fair enough”. (I guess, to clarify the dynamics of the situation here, I should mention that one of the co-workers is female.) We drank our beers while the ajumma smiled and tried to feed us dried anchovies. Um, no thanks.
About five minutes later my song came on and I got up to sing. In the middle of the song I waved my co-workers over to join me. A man and woman sitting at another bar came out to dance. Good times for all. Until the song finished and we returned to our seats, that is. When we sat down we noticed that the three previously unopened bottles of beer were now open and in fact were completely empty while our other bottles were still half-full.
“What happened to our other beers?” I asked the ajumma. She simply smiled and played coy, saying that we had already drunk them. “What are you talking about!? We had only drunk about a half a bottle each before my song came on,” I exclaimed. Since the song was only about four minutes long and my co-workers had joined me in the middle, I knew that they would - and could - not have downed three full bottles of beer in the interim. It was clear that the woman had poured the other bottles of beer out.
We were absolutely dumbfounded. Why in the hell would she do something like this? Did she sense that we were so drunk that we would not notice? If so, she obviously underestimated the value we place on our alcohol. And even if we had been that drunk, what was the point of deceiving us? To compel us to buy more beer? We had intended to do that anyway. But by trying to pull a fast one and getting caught, she completely destroyed any chance of us spending more money there that night or any night in the future.
The manager, seeing the conflict, came over and asked us what the problem was. I explained to him what the ajumma had done. She denied it but, judging from the look on the manager’s face, he was not too pleased with her. He apologized, gave me his business card, and told us that next time he would give us six free bottles of beer. But the damage had been done. We weren’t coming back.
We decided to finish our remaining beer before leaving. Get this: The ajumma picked up a bottle, handed it to me, and then held up her glass as if she expected me to fill it. Um, yeah right lady. You poured your beer down the drain.
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