::A Geek in Korea::

My wife and I, being near social shut ins for no particular reason but laziness, were excited to be invited to a Christmas party at a friend’s house. The invite said to bring some food, as well as a gift. We split up the tasks. I handled the food, she took care of the gift.

Her gift was unique. My wife went and made a ridiculously awesome traditional Korean paper art box. She’s been taking classes on how to make these unique Korean items. I hadn’t seen the fruits of her long work at her class until she came home to lacquer it. There was a lot of work put into our gift.

There wasn’t a lot of work put into our side dish. I got information from the host that no one had mentioned any sort of salad was being brought. Salad I can handle. I hopped over the local E-Mart, grabbed some fixings, and came back to the apartment to get chopping. We even bottled up some dressing for the trip. Just in case the salad didn’t go over well, I brought some Jägermeister. If their throats were burning from alcohol, no one could complain about the salad.

We arrived in the first “wave” of people. When we got to the apartment, there was a turkey the size of a large beach ball stuffed on the table. There were cookies, bottles of wine, and lots of other side dishes. I had brought the only salad. We set our gift under the tree and got to socializing. We we ate later on, I had double servings of turkey and home made mashed potatoes. My salad didn’t last long enough to make it to my second course, so it was a success too. I had to loosen the belt, so it was a delicious meal.

There was a “Korean” room where spouses and Korean coworkers hung out, and a “foreigner” room with all of us loud mouths shouting and getting a good bit of drinking going. I’ve met some of these people multiple times, but most of them work together. One of the people joked that our host was a “Korean Lifer”, as in, he’d been here so long he didn’t remember customs from back home. In a twist of fate it turned out I’ve been in Korea longer than any foreigner invited at the party, even longer than the host. C’est La Vie.

The main event of the evening was the gift exchange. Every gift giver got a number to pick a gift. If you went first, you got first choice. If you went second, you could steal the first person’s gift, or pick one from under the tree. If you got your gift stolen, your second gift you chose was “safe” and couldn’t be taken by anyone.

We went third, and picked the heaviest box. We got a set of Christmas dishes. There were 20 people behind us, and we thought we’d lose our gift for sure. Of course, most of the people were not “lifers” like we were, so perhaps they had less use for some matching sets of dishes. We also got some home made hot chocolate powder. I was positive we were going to lose our gift, but we luckily held on the entire game.

When the host saw someone pick up our gift, he told everyone, “She makes such awesome stuff. She made a watch for my wife’s wedding present. Really, that’ll be a good one.” My wife had a huge smile on her face. As it turns out, my wife’s present was fought over and stolen once. The person that ended up with it was very happy and was in awe she had made it entirely out of paper.

The next game was different. There were two extremely over wrapped presents. Packing tape, lots of wrapping, MORE wrapping tape. It was completely over the top. Anyway, people had to throw dice, and when someone got doubles, they had to swipe a gift and begin unwrapping it. The next person to roll doubles took the gift from them and began to unwrap it. The person holding the gift at the end got to keep it.

The game started out strange, with more than 10 dice being rolled without a single set of doubles. Then all hell broke loose. Someone next to me rolled the first set of doubles and grabbed a gift. They were struggling like hell to get the wrapping off when the dice came to me. I rolled two fives, and snatched the gift from her. She had the top unwrapped, but the long slim body remained wrapped in thick layers. Using my feet and arms, like a monkey peeling a banana, I got the rest of the wrapping off in a few seconds.

VICTORY! It was a plastic mixing tumbler with Kahlua filled chocolate treats inside. I passed around the chocolate to everyone in the room. They seemed surprised I’d share my present. Perhaps that’s the “Korean manners” I learned being a lifer.

There was also a “mingle” game where people asked people questions to find out what Christmas themed item was written on a Post-it note attached to their back. I have played this exact same game with students, but we had no theme and everyone tried to cheat. This was more fun. I was a Christmas cookie, my wife was Christmas Carols.

Some Canadians brought Christmas “poppers”, which aren’t really as scary as the name implied. A small, wrapped gift that “popped” lamely when you pulled it apart. We also went on the roof of the building and shot off fireworks. Several apartments nearby had lights flash on, and people watching from their verandas. We even got a few drunks walking home to stop and watch for a bit. No one called the police either. Wonderful.

We got a ride home from a Korean lady my wife befriended at the party. She’s now a job contact, which seemed to be the entire reason the Korean “room” existed. Everyone was networking to find classes and jobs around town. Even on Christmas they didn’t stop talking about getting more money. Yikes.

Anyway, it was a wonderful time, and the best Christmas since I hung out with my parents after my wedding.

Tags: christmas, party, foreigners, lifer, games, fun