Korean Team Building

So I had my first taste of Korean team building today which actually involves a lot of alcohol. I was one of the last teachers to leave and was invited along with some of my Korean co-workers and Jonathan to eat dinner before I left.

Mr. Kim, the owner of the school had cooked some sort of pork dish with some ramen and set it up in one of the classrooms. It ended up being me, Jonathan, Rachel, Debbie (who is our go-to-girl because she speaks the best English) and Mr. and Mrs. Kim.

We were told to wrap the pork (which was really greasy and fatty) in these leaves which we were told were sesame leaves. Add in some pepper paste, some chillies and garlic cloves and stuff the whole mess in your mouth. This was all accompanied by two rather large bottles of rice wine. It was actually a lot of fun seeing them when we weren't all working though I couldn't really speak to the Kims because they barely speak English (ironic, no?). Debbie was telling us about the food and the way Korean people think about food.

Warm food is supposed to be better for your digestion because it is closer to the temperature of your body and thus helps your body be at peak performance. Therefore there is very few foods that Koreans eat that is cold. I can't really think of any other than kimchi. The rice wine they were serving was supposed to be good for your digestion, like yogurt, and kind of had some sludgy stuff at the bottom.

We were all drinking, but Rachel seemed most affected by it. She kept on starting a sentence in English and then finishing it in Korean like she didn't have the mental fortitude at the moment to think of words in English. At one point she was trying very hard to convey something to us (this was after she made me promise to call her 'older sister') and kept staring with "I..." and then trailing off.
"I.. I am.. I.." and she waved her hands in the air like she could catch the word if she just tried hard enough. finally, she turned to Debbie and said something. Debbie turns back to her with an amused look on her face and enunciates clearly: "Drunk." Rachel turned to us and nodded solemnly.

Whoever thought a ropes course would be better than this has clearly never been to Korea.