My trip to China was instigated by an expo, and an expo is an expo is an expo. It doesn't really matter where I am, it's the same basic nonsense. The only real difference is when I go overseas I don't have to wear my "I Can Speak Korea!" pin, oh and sometimes when we go overseas we have a translator. Shanghai was one of those times.My party of adventurers on this particular business trip was a red mage, a fighter, and a summoner...or me, my boss, and one co-worker, and on this particular trip, our translator was a godsend, mostly because my boss and co-worker had way too many meetings with some Chinese company we already do business with and sitting alone in an expo booth for 7+ hours is boring. She was actually really nice and easy to talk to (unlike our interpreter in Japan) which made the time pass much more quickly.
As always (because I don't take anything I do seriously), the true awesomeness of a business trip is the stuff that only marginally relates to business, which on this trip meant one thing. Restaurants! My favorite thing about traveling overseas is eating stuff and drinking stuff that I can't eat or drink back home. So if I end up eating pidgeons or drinking booze that smells like a dirty jockstrap and tastes like burning, so be it. My boss, historically, has been a little less of a college student/contestant on Fear Factor when we travel, so everytime we go to China, or some China dervitive (Taiwan, Hong Kong) I'm a little worried. This time, for whatever reason, my boss was all about the food that we found, though he still wouldn't eat lamb.
Lamb is something I didn't eat often in America, but in Korea where it's all but impossible to acquire, it randomly became my second favorite meat (turkey, which is also impossible to find ranks at number one because I actually ate that a lot in the US and A). China, on the other hand, is all about lamb, so every time I'm there I make sure to eat lamb at least once, much to my boss' shagrin.
When I travel overseas with my boss, we inevitably end up eating at a Korean restaurant at least once (more if we travel with a group of other companies). I don't really know why Koreans can't go three days without eating Korean food. It's delicious food, but when you are in a foreign country, it's less awesome, expensive, and a waste of time. That's my normal way of thinking, but when we were in Shanghai, I finally found a Korean restaurant overseas that was worth paying a visit to. That restuarant was 옥류관, a restaurant that was staffed by North Koreans and served North Korean style food.
I'm going to be totally honest with ya bud, I felt a little guilty going there. I had the same feeling when I went to a strip club for the first time. I felt the same way when I ate dogs and whales. It was that feeling that, "Protestant American society tells me I shouldn't be doing this, but it's awesome, but I shouldn't, ARRRGGG!!!"
Anyway the food was awesome, and the girls working there were pretty amazing. They did everything. They acted as waitresses, cooked food, and then sang, danced, and/or played musical instruments. They were all also at least biligual, speaking Korean and Chinese. I also am functionally bilingual, a fact which our waitress was surprised by. The North Korean dialect is weird, but honestly easier for me to understand than the Jeju-do dialect. That's not to say I could understand it perfectly. If I could the following exchange would never have taken place.
ME: (asking our waitress, who had teeth like Dracula about a dish which I enjoyed, but had never had in Seoul) That was delicious. What is it called?
WAITRESS: Domado shrimp.
ME: Eh?
WAITRESS: Domado shrimp.
ME: Ah...tomato shrimp.
Apparently South Koreans say tomato, North Koreans say domado. Tomato! Domado! Let's call the whole thing off.
The waitresses were all in their twenties, but they had an overlord, a middle aged woman in a communist suit, complete with Kim Il Sung/Kim Jung Il badge combo. On business trips I, for whatever reason, am entrusted with money and company credit cards, so when it came time to pay the bill I had to spring into action, and talk to the middle-aged communist lady.
North and South Koreans are not all that different in that if a white person can speak their language at all they are shocked and must comment on it. The restaurant overlord was no exception.
On our way to the restaurant, my coworker, the summoner, warned me about the restaurant. He had apparently been there on a business trip prior to me starting at the company and offered me this advice, "Don't talk shit about Kim Jong Il, don't talk about America or South Korea, and you'll be fine. The last time I went there I saw some South Korean tourist get roughed up by communists for talking shit."
Like the World War II poster said, "Loose lips sink ships," or something like that. Blame it on the Pyeongyang Soju or the mushroom based alcohol I consumed, but I almost fucked up big time.
While I was paying and chatting up a middle aged communist lady complete with Kim Jung Il pins in Korean she dropped the standard issue, "You speak Korean very well," line that every middle-aged Korean lady will drop if you can speak more than one word of Korean. The only difference was she used the word "조선말," instead of "한국말." Thanks to my weekly viewing of the program "North Korean Window," that turn of phrase did not render me useless, so the following conversation took place.
COMMUNIST LADY: You speak our language very well. How did you learn it?
ME: (
COMMUNIST LADY: Here in Shanghai?
ME: No...
Suddenly like the ghost of Obi Wan Kenobi or Jimmeny Cricket, the voice of my co-worker rang loud and clear in my mind, "DON'T MENTION AMERICA! DON'T MENTION AMERICA!!!"
I'd painted myself into a corner. How could I get myself out of this situation without needing Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter to save my ass? Suddenly I remembered an awesome thing in Korean, they use "our" instead of "my." So I dropped a, "I learned in 'our country,'" and defused the situation.
Anyway that was pretty much China. Or at least the stuff that was interesting to talk about, since I'm sure few of you care about MOQs or pricelists or "business clubs."
To quote Lavar Burton, "I'll see you next time!"
Oh wait, I should probably mention some other stuff that happened. You know what? Fuck it! I'll see you next time!
2 comments:
If you live near South Asians they'll likely have a market - there are several on 'em in Itaewon for instance. It'll have frozen Aussie mutton in a variety of cuts such leg and rack. Pretty affordable, too; 16k - 20k a kilo.
Sometimes you can find goat. It's tasty, too.
There's a very good lamb restaurant called Lambland in Seoul's Mapo-gu.
Eat deliciously.
I know of the frozen mutton in Itaewon and have actually purchased it before, though I remember it being more costly, and kind of freezer-burny. Lambland, on the other hand, is news to me, and being a resident of Mapo-gu might actually be a shorter trip then heading to Itaewon. I'll have to Naver it up and see where it's at.
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