{"id":57,"date":"2013-05-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-09T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yule-tide.generalsemiotics.net\/index.php\/2013\/05\/09\/post-50-one-night-in-april-of-2009-pt-5-hwe-shik\/"},"modified":"2013-05-09T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-05-09T00:00:00","slug":"post-50-one-night-in-april-of-2009-pt-5-hwe-shik","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/2013\/05\/09\/post-50-one-night-in-april-of-2009-pt-5-hwe-shik\/","title":{"rendered":"Post-50: One Night in April of 2009 (Pt. 5): Hwe-Shik"},"content":{"rendered":"
\nNOTE:<\/strong> These are my memories of the night I arrived in Korea in 2009.
The memories are vivid, even as I sit here in the spring of 2013, four years later.<\/em>\n<\/div>\n
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\nThis is a follow-up to:<\/font>
Part I: “A Pig Virus Delays My Arrival”<\/strong><\/a><\/font>\u00a0and <\/font>Part II: “Into the Wild Neon Yonder”<\/strong><\/a><\/font>\u00a0and
<\/font>Part III: “Meeting the Boss”<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and<\/font> Part IV: “Meeting New Coworkers”<\/a><\/strong><\/font><\/font>
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[Simple synopsis of Part I: In the airport, I find the woman waiting to pick me up]
[Simple synopsis of Part II: From the airport to my new workplace; observations along the way]
[Simple synopsis of Part III: I meet my new boss (whose personal history I relate); we depart for the restaurant]
<\/span>[Simple synopsis of Part IV: Meeting new\u00a0Korean coworkers at the restaurant]<\/font><\/div>\n
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\nIn Part V here, I may do well to pause and discuss Korean<\/em> hwe-shik generally, my impressions of it, and my\u00a0later experiences with it. I found myself in one of these\u00a0a matter of two hours after stepping off the plane. At that moment, of course,\u00a0I didn’t realize what was happening, nor could I appreciate it. In retrospect, I can. . . .
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<\/span><\/em>
<\/span>Hwe-shik<\/em><\/font><\/strong> (\ud68c\uc2dd),\u00a0eating and drinking with coworkers as<\/em> coworkers, outside work, and during which the boss (who pays) is present,\u00a0is a vital part of the work experience in Korea, it seems to me. In my experience in Ilsan, hwe-shik<\/em>\u00a0 events principally involved the consumption of barbecued-at-the-table meat and alcohol. <\/p>\n

<\/span>Some more information, as I understand it:
<\/span>
Who Is Invited<\/font><\/strong>
<\/span>Those not invited to hwe-shik<\/em> are not considered actual coworkers.\u00a0Part-time workers or lowly-assistants are often not invited. Those who are invited to hwe-shik<\/em> and\u00a0refuse to go\u00a0are doing something strange, offensive, and faux-pas<\/em>,\u00a0perhaps comparable to not saluting a superior in the military at the proper time. (In my current job, we foreign teachers, in theory the equals of the Korean teachers,\u00a0have not been invited to a single after-work hwe-shik<\/em> in my 20 months of employment, which\u00a0really distresses me.)<\/p>\n

Hwe-shik<\/em> are the initiative of the boss. They are led by the charisma of the boss, and endured (with varying levels of actual enjoyment) by those co-workers who are invited. In the case of my job in Ilsan, this usually included the “desk-teachers” and even the assistant (\uc870\uad50), the lowliest job of all. My closest Korean friend, C.B.W., was\u00a0the sole\u00a0assistant for a few months in 2009, and we first got to talking at a hwe-shik<\/em> in August or\u00a0September of 2009.\u00a0Without hwe-shik<\/em>, we never would’ve been friends.
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The Purpose of Hwe-Shik<\/font><\/strong>
Students\u00a0were frequently discussed at hwe-shik<\/em>, it’s true, but “work” was never the purpose. Although the best short English translation possible may be “work-dinner”, that translation is seriously weak. “Work”, as such, was not the point. Usually these hwe-shik<\/em>\u00a0 were just held\u00a0“for the heck of it” without any pretext like a holiday or someone’s last day (though those were also sometimes used to justify them). The purpose was more chit-chat and to enjoy\u00a0a big meal paid for by the boss. More deeply, there was something else going on, though:
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The Effect of Hwe-Shik (Juhng<\/em> Building)<\/font><\/strong>
<\/span>When push comes to shove,\u00a0hwe-shik<\/em> was\/is a chance for building the emotion Koreans call Juhng <\/em>(\uc815), which I learned to be a special kind of bond formed with those with whom one has undergone mutual hardships, like the bond of soldiers who’ve served together. As I understand it, Juhng<\/em> doesn’t<\/u> necessarily mean friendship or even\u00a0necessarily admiration, but a kind of recognition of, and appreciation of, shared-experience itself, “we are [were] all in this together”. It’s especially true for emotionally-important experiences, like (again) combat, or working together\u00a0at a\u00a0such-and-such company in difficult conditions. The harder the situation, the stronger the Juhng<\/em>. <\/p>\n

Benefits of Hwe-Shik<\/font><\/strong>
There are good things and bad things I can say about my one year in Ilsan. Looking back now, fours years after that first hwe-shik<\/em> I\u00a0began describing in Part IV<\/a>, and three years after\u00a0I finished\u00a0my contract\u00a0and left Ilsan,\u00a0I can say that these attempts to build rapport, to\u00a0sow the seeds of Juhng<\/em>,\u00a0were terrific for me. I felt included (in a way), and valued, proud. I got a lot of Juhng<\/em> “points” with those coworkers for always being there, plus I was able to try all manner of new\u00a0foods, I picked up some Korean language on those nights, I learned more about my coworkers, and observed Koreans functioning purely within their own culture. And, not least, it was <\/em>a lot of free <\/em>food!
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<\/span>Anyway, the hwe-shik<\/em> at my job in Ilsan were all the\u00a0initiative of the boss, Mrs. Y. I owe her a debt of gratitude, as I imply above. That’s not to say I enjoyed<\/em>\u00a0 them: Typically, the others\u00a0spoke only in Korean, and I was left alone\u00a0eating what I could find in front of me and trying not to look too\u00a0uncomfortable. In this context, focusing too much on “enjoyment” is silly, though. The gladness I feel for having had those experiences is not connected with ‘enjoyment’.
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A Terrible Attitude<\/font><\/strong>
<\/span>I pity any foreigner who comes here, works with Koreans, and never does hwe-shik.<\/em> They are missing something. Worse than missing out, though,\u00a0is willingly<\/em> missing out.\u00a0Few things have annoyed me more, within the context of working in Korea,\u00a0than when\u00a0some of the\u00a0other foreigners who are employed in the family of hagwon at which I presently work have said how glad<\/em> they are that we haven’t had work-dinners. They don’t “want to”.\u00a0The people I am thinking of\u00a0have never worked anywhere else in Korea, so have never actually experienced\u00a0hwe-shik<\/em> at all.\u00a0This attitude is terrible. Worse, it is foolish. Why are they in Korea? It’s like going to Hawaii for a year but never making it to the beach, then shrugging it off with a “I’m glad I never went to the beach — Who needs the sunburn?” ….<\/em>Argh.
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Synopsis of <\/font>My Hwe-Shik<\/em> in 2009-2010<\/font><\/strong>
We had hwe-shik<\/em>\u00a0 approximately once a month in my year\u00a0in Ilsan. Maybe twice Western food was involved (including the Christmas one), but otherwise it was barbecued meat, typically the fatty pork sam-gyup-sal<\/a>. Alcohol was always\u00a0involved.\u00a0There were several instances of the boss buying lunch or a late dinner for all or some of us, which we ate in the language-institute itself — including one instance of some unidentified ultra-spicy Chinese\u00a0food that\u00a0affected my tongue and mouth so\u00a0strongly that it brought tears to my eyes. I spent five minutes in the institute’s bathroom running water over my tongue after finishing.
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<\/span>I’m not sure whether to consider such meals consumed at work true hwe-shik<\/em> or not.\u00a0Some (of my arbitrary)\u00a0criteria are met, but a true hwe-shik, <\/em>to me, need\u00a0be outside the premises of work.\u00a0
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<\/span>Only once was one organized not by the boss but by another senior teacher, a woman who made up for in force-of-will and loudness-of-voice what she lacked in stature (being not much over 5’0″), and\u00a0whose name sounded very\u00a0similar to North Korea’s now-dead second president.
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In November of 2009, we also had what could be called a 24-hour-long hwe-shik<\/em>, in which all the teachers (and the shy desk-teacher I mentioned in Part III<\/a>) went to a pension on Ganghwa Island after work on one Saturday. Again, paid for in full by the boss. Barbecue pork and beef was had, a lot of talking was done, and then sleep. People left by noon Sunday. As, again, with most hwe-shik<\/em>, there was no actual reason for going to Ganghwa Island overnight. I recall some flimsy lip-service being given to the idea that it\u00a0would be a\u00a0“training”, but lip service is all it was.
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Back\u00a0in the 11 o’clock hour of April 29th, 2009 (Korea time),\u00a0in that cozy-but-noisy restaurant in Ilsan,\u00a0the “reason” for the hwe-shik<\/em> underway was<\/strong> clear, though:\u00a0a farewell and a welcome.\u00a0The ‘welcome’ was directed at me, of course. The\u00a0‘farewell’ was for B, the American man in his 30s whom I was replacing. I was now sitting next to him, and soon became amazed at one particular ability he had. . . .\n<\/div>\n

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\n[This is the End of Part V]<\/strong><\/p>\n

[Next: Part VI, Part VII, and Part VIII]<\/strong>
<\/font>[Previous: Part I<\/u><\/a>, Part II<\/u><\/a>, Part III<\/a>, and Part IV<\/a>]<\/font>
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NOTE: These are my memories of the night I arrived in Korea in 2009. The memories are vivid, even as I sit here in the spring of 2013, four years later. This is a follow-up to:Part I: “A Pig Virus Delays My Arrival”\u00a0and Part II: “Into the Wild Neon Yonder”\u00a0and Part III: “Meeting the Boss”\u00a0and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}