Quick trivia question. How do you say "Merry Christmas" in South Korea?
"Merry Christmas."
Hooray for me! No need to learn any new phrases, which is good because I'm still stuck on four or five. I'll get better. Meantime, let's tell you what it was like to spend the holidays halfway around the world from where I grew up.
Christmas Eve. I left work at 9:30 p.m. and had dinner at the Orange Store, a 24/7 place that serves good meals for less than five dollars. Things that are normally open at 9:30 p.m. were still open. Christmas is acknowledged here but not revered. The kids don't know much about Santa Claus, except that he gives presents (and they want him to give them cash) and all reindeer are called "Rudolphs." But God bless 'em, they got in the spirit, if only because the Korean instructors kept them focused on grammar and listening while the native English speakers played Christmas-related games. In the three days leading up to Christmas my classes wrote letters to Santa. They played Christmas bingo. They looked at the words "RUDOPLH'S RED NOSE" or "CHRISTMAS TREE" and tried to make as many words as possible from those letters. Sometimes I provided a beginning of a Christmas story and the students wrote the rest.
But back to Christmas Eve. Many teachers showed up at Joe from New York's apartment. Joe is that rare Yankees fan who speaks in complete sentences, and despite his wearing a Mattingly jersey was quite the good host. Especially since he's Jewish. He had an iTunes Christmas list that finally solved one of my big holiday mysteries: Who sings this catchy and incredibly annoying Christmas song? I always thought it was Swing Out Sister while Andy from England thought it was Bananarama. Turns out it's The Waitresses -- who also performed one of the great I'm-Hot-And-You-Can-Never-Have-Me songs of my era. Anyway, we ate, we drank, we sang "Lawyers, Guns and Money." The Triple Crown of partying, I say.
Presents! Having arrived home at 4 a.m., I opened my presents. I got clothes, DVDs, decorations and FIFA09 -- the latter of which I am bursting at the seams to play, but I can't, and I'd tell you why, but I want you to finish reading this, so let's just say the story involves a turn-down converter, a garage in Van Nuys and a check that at this very second would not clear my bank account.
Now, two of my friends skewered me for wanting to open presents before I went to bed. Pish posh nonsense. Doing so provided a valuable service. I watched the first episode from Blackadder The Third before I went to bed. (Editor's note: I have since watched all six episodes. Highlights from the series are below. If you watch, and you catch yourself saying, "Wow, the Prince Regent looks familiar but I just can't place why," click here.)
Christmas day. No school today. Everything else was open. My coffee shop was open. My haircut place was open. E-Mart was open. Vendors set up on the streets. Again, people acknowledge it's Christmas, but it's still business as usual. I had someone tell me that Christmas is the busiest shopping day of the year because there's no school, and some businesses are off, so the stores get blitzed.
There's a pub in our neighborhood that caters to English speakers. That's where we held our pot luck. We ate fried chicken, Cajun chicken, pastas, stuffing, cranberry sauce, cheese and crackers, sweet potato pie, blueberry pie, cake, cream puffs, soup, seven-layer dip and numerous other dishes that erased much of the good work I've done to drop weight. (Insert dopey emoticon here.)
At 11:30 p.m., my family called me via Skype. They still had presents under the tree. It was 9:30 a.m. -- 14 hours behind. So this Christmas actually ended where last year's began for me: in my sister's living room in Keene, N.H.
Merry Christmas, and don't forget that you have it better than many other people out there. I give you the greatest collection of stars to put together a Christmas song ...
I've racked my brain in search of the best reason to tell you I haven't updated my site. And I have finally settled upon, "I'm lazy."
But I do want to update everyone -- so much so that I'm writing while Arsenal plays Liverpool in the background. "Yeah," you're thinking, "but that's not really a sacrifice because you can still hear what's going on." Oh, no, I can't. The commentary is in Korean. So I do care. Now get off my back.
Last night was the Yale Christmas party. Photos are on Facebook, thanks to my friend and co-worker Thomas Finn (England). If you are on Facebook, happy navigating. If you are not on Facebook, I regret to inform you that the year is 2008.
I played Santa, which was basically a gloried MC, only with a really scratchy mustache. We did the Yankee swap, which means the person whose number is drawn grabs a gift, and when the next person comes up, they have the option of buying that person's gift for $161 million and still not make the playoffs. It was really quite fun.
Our school has five campuses in Daegu. Our campus, Siji, has 11 native English speakers. Ten of us were at the party. All but one went downtown, where we got properly smashed to the point where five of us sang "Bohemian Rhapsody" on the karaoke machine after 4 a.m. and had no worries about how off-key we were. Karaoke is very popular in Korea and often a group exercise. By the end of the night I had also sung "Piano Man," "Born To Run" and "Jessie's Girl." After each song, the monitor on the machine gives a score. We have no idea how it's tabulated, but we got a 99 after "Born To Run," so I guess the criteria is as follows:
1. Pick a number between 90 and 100.
2. Show it.
Our local pub is planning a pot luck dinner on Christmas, so I'll be with friends. It won't be like being at home, but we'll have Secret Santa and plenty of food. And my presents are en route from New Hampshire. My initial plans are to head to Seoul for a long weekend, because I haven't had the chance to really see the place yet. I've been once, for a day trip. Glad I did it. Shopped. Squeezed onto the subway. Ate Mexican food. And left. Gotta do more.
The Patriots kick off in 15 minutes, and I have found a way to watch the game. So it's time to put some Dunkin Donuts coffee on the pot and get ready to watch my team for the first time since October.
So if I don't post again before Thursday, here are three notes, in order of least important to most:
Merry Christmas.
Go Patriots.
Don't forget to watch me on "Wheel of Fortune" on New Year's Day. Check local listings, please. Boston area, I believe I'll be on WSBK-38 at 7:30.
