Oh, Susannah

This post won’t be nearly as funny as the last post, but I think that is going to be hard to top!

Last week my co-teacher told me we were going to be having another staff dinner. I immediately started thinking of the food again, and wondered what is going to happen this time. Luckily, the principal told me we were having a chicken soup. So at least I knew there wouldn’t be another dog/duck fiasco!

I was told that the restaurant was close to downtown so when we started driving out of town I was a little confused. Then I noticed we are along the coast of the island and there was a huge fence with three sets of barbed wire. We continued driving, then went through a roadblock where the soldier asked where we were going and checked the driver’s license. My co-teacher then pointed to the mountains and shore on the other side of the river and said, “North Korea.” Well that explains it. Although it didn’t look any different from any other landmass, it was still very strange just to be looking at North Korea.

So when I wasn’t staring at North Korea on the drive to the restaurant, my co-teacher kept talking about this chicken soup and how when you eat it you take the tree out and do not eat the tree. He then asked if I had any food allergies. I said no. But he still kept saying don’t eat the tree and then scratching his skin as to tell me this “tree” in my food would make me break out. When we got into the restaurant it turned out my co-teacher was being literal. In the huge pot of soup were small tree limbs. It’s apparently very good, but makes everyone have an allergic reaction so everyone who eats it takes this pill before hand to keep from breaking out. My co-teacher and I didn’t eat the tree-soup but instead had a spicy, chicken soup with potatoes. It was very good, and luckily this time, there was no confusion about what I was eating.

During dinner, several teachers were trying to talk to me even though, they know about as much English as I do Korean. But they did say, “Alabama, right?” I nodded yes and smiled. Then they started humming a song. No, it wasn’t “Sweet Home Alabama,” but it did sound a lot like “Dixie.” So I nodded yes, and smiled again. Then I realized they were humming “Oh, Susannah.” I sang the few lyrics I knew. They immediately started clapping and the whole table at once looked our way. One man, who had a lot of soju started singing it in Korean and then told me to sing it in English. I sang the small part I knew and he immediately yelled for the principal. Then the principal instructed me to sing it to the whole place. Well when the principal says jump you say how high. So I sang “Oh, Susannah” in front of the restaurant and then got a round of applause. I guess those norabang visits are starting to pay off after all!