In Her Shoes

So again, I’ve done a not so good job of updating my blog as regularly as I imagined I would. I think the main reason for that is that I have been waiting for something exciting/super interesting/out-of-the-ordinary to happen to write an entry, so as not to bore my readers with the mundane activities of my day-to-day life. Even though I am in Korea, my average day is pretty run-of-the-mill: eating, exercising, teaching, reading, and watching TV online. After speaking to Packer, my Blogger Sensei, I think maybe I will try and write shorter entries more frequently rather than longer ones every week or two.

This past Friday night I went into Seoul to see a show put on by a coworker of mine at a club in Hongdai, a hoppin part of town known for its abundance of university students and excellent nightlife. Andrew and his group Swingset Committee has been performing at various venues around the country for the last six months or so, and is actually about to embark on a tour in Japan. He sings, while his bandmate plays a little electric violin and works the synthesizer. The show was really good—the music they played was sort of a combination of techno, house, and electronica (as you can probably tell, I’m not very good at identifying musical genres).

The more “interesting” (and I use that word very inauspiciously) part of the evening revolved around an exchange I had outside the club right before I ventured inside. While waiting with some friends for the show to start, I struck up a conversation with these two Korean guys (probably in their late 20s or early 30s) who were there as well. They seemed to be pretty normal and outgoing, so I told them about the show and suggested they come in to see it. As we were going in the door, one of the guys offered to pay my entrance fee to the club, so I thought, “sure, why the heck not save the 10,000 won?!”

Of course, as soon as we are down in the club, that same guy starts to get a little friendlier than he had been outside, if you get my drift. I was trying to be nice because I felt like I at least owed him a little conversation after he paid my way in, but after a few lengthy back pats, it became clear that he was probably looking for more than just conversation. I wasn’t intimidated by the guy at all—he was just this little pudgy guy, probably about 5’’2 or 5’’3—but I had some trouble letting him down easy, and had to be assisted by a female friend who ended up dancing with me rather provocatively in an effort to prove to the guy that I wasn’t interested. In the end, I learned a valuable lesson, and think I experienced to some degree what it must feel like to be a woman at a typical nightclub.