The 3rd week: Celebration and Seoulemnity

In my last post I wasn't telling the entire truth. Not on purpose, but I feel like I should tell you anyway. When I said "Plans to take it easy from now on have been made and will not be shelved as the next weekend comes, I swear.", I wasn't thinking of the upcoming KO-YON GAMES:

My school, Korea University, has this tradition, where we are battling our archrival, Yonsei-University (I don't know why we don't like them, though) once per year, at major disciplines like Baseball, Hockey, Basketball, Soccer and Rugby. So it happened again this year, the previous weekend.

If you know me, you might be wondering how watching some sport event can get me to do anything other than yawn elaborately, let alone jump and dance. I was also having these worries at first, but I didn't want to appear boring and unsocial ( and had nothing better to do). That's why I went to the former olympic stadium, on Friday around noon, determined to pretend that I wasn't having a bad time.
To my own surprise, I didn't have to pretend much.

When I got there, just in time to watch the baseball game, which is a rather laid-back thing to do elsewhere in the world, or maybe an excuse for drinking beer (so I was told), the party was already fully in progress.

It was simply mindblowing. At noon, people were already being crazy, dancing, cheering and supporting their teams, half the stadium dressed in blue (Yonsei University - or blue monsters) half in red (KU). Even the most consequent adversary of attending social gatherings that involve spectating sporting events (or, in short: I) would get sucked in by the athmosphere there, right away.

As some friends and me were just about to leave the Baseball stadium, to go to a different stadium to watch Basketball, our team won. It was overwhelming... Some of the oftentimes so reserved Korean students just grabbed us, formed a circle and together we sang, and danced one of the various cheers of KU once again.
(Well, they sang. Due to lack of lyrics and the ability to pronounce them, we were just making noise)

We won at Baseball, but for the sake of fairness, I should also mention that we suck at Basketball. Actually, I can't judge, as I still don't have a grasp of the rules of that game (it wasn't about the game at all though, what mattered was the cheering, and the community of KU students at the time) but my American co-spectators couldn't believe the complete lack of strategy and skill that our team stood for.

But their fans deserve an A+ for commitment. Even in the last 7 minutes, when things looked bleak for us, to say the least, the guy next to me was repeating like a mantra "we can still make it, it's possible..." Of course it wasn't but it didn't really matter either. We suffered an epic defeat, but still, chants of "It's ok, it's alright..." accompanied our players, as they were leaving the stadium.

It was a pretty exhausting evening, but since there was still a victory to celebrate, (or we openly embrace any excuse to crack a bottle of Soju) Friday night turned into Saturday and after a delicious hangover-breakfast we headed to the stadium again.

Unlike us, the Koreans were showing no signs of slowing down, and again there wasn't much to do, but cheer and dance. By now we had even mastered some of the dances and after everything was over at around 5, and the outcome happened to be a tie, the games culminated in 1000s of students, of both KU and Yonsei University, dancing, singing and waving flags all together in the arena.

Despite our voices and legs being slightly sore already, the best was still to come:
Traditionally, after Ko-Yon-Games are over, the KU alumni (some of whom are really famous, such as South Korea's current president, Lee Myung Bak) give all the KU students FREE FOOD AND BOTTOMLESS BEER! No, I'm not bullshitting you, that's really what they do.

As you might have guessed, Saturday night deserves a paragraph of its own here:
Among the incoming students, the consensus was that there is no place in the world, that could possibly be more fun at that moment. Few things are for sure, but one is, that KU is the party-university # 1 on the planet, at least that night it doubtlessely was. Anam, the district near to the campus was turned into one crazy fiesta. Students were going wild, cheering and dancing on the street, or in the pubs, but instead of having the whole thing shut down by the police, they were photographed, celebrated and frequently had their cups refilled by their predecessors, the amazingly generous KU alummni.

Again, I'm giving you the impression that I'm not actually studying in this place. That is not true. Obviously, I'm focusing on the more exiting stuff in my blog, which are of course not the weekday-mornings, where I get up at 7, to go through my readings (which i finish sometimes late at night) again, or have a look at some of the new korean vocab that I picked up the day before. Neither is it the lectures, where the Sonsaengnim put even more emphasis on punctuality and attendance then at the Fachhochschule at home.

Additionally, I joined the English Language Club. Being from Austria and thus completely unaquainted to after-school activities, this was all new for me, but great fun, 'cause it's all Koreans and we go out to eat (and admittedly drink, but just a little!) after doing our English quizzes and exercises. It also gives me the chance to meet even more great new people, pick up some non-textbook-Korean and get an insight into Korean humour (which is quite different: Occasionally I get a joke, sometimes not, but often the humour probably gets lost in the translation)

Other good news is that I finally have my passport back. It was at the immigration office for longer than I was comfortable with. But now, my Alien Card, yes, that's really what they call this kind of ID, has been issued. Apparently, they still consider us Weiguks (foreigners) otherworldly creatures from somewhere like outer space, but now at least I'm an officially registered alien. T'feels great.