There was a reason, of course.
"Bong" (often spelled "Bang") as well, is how to say "room" in Korean. This is important. Why? Koreans love Bongs.
Now, a quick note, by "room" they do not refer to their bedrooms, or living rooms, or kitchens - just as the Italian word "stanza" means room but does not refer to a specific "room" as Americans have come to denote them.
"Bong"/"Bang" refers to a space once can visit. Korea features PCBongs (computer rooms), DVDBangs (movie watching rooms) and Noraebongs (private karaoke rooms).....Hotel rooms are called "bongs" as well.
There are many others - for instance, the man who runs the hostel that my friends & I frequent often - Moon - who will, deservingly, get his own post here someday - calls his hostel our "saranbang" which translates to "love room" but means more an open space where loved ones are invited.
Or, atleast, that's what he told me.
So.....today I needed to scan a document to send to someone (to that someone, if you are reading this - MANY HUGE thank you's) so they can help secure me a visa for my visit to Vietnam. Online, apparently, you can only secure a visa if you are flying into the country. Instead, we are "manning the Mekong" as I've coined it and sailing down the river. So sweet!
Anyway, my school told me I might be able to use their scanner - but by the time I asked, the people in the copy room/office had already left. Add to this that fact that it would probably not be open tomorrow (this is what they told me at school - I just found out a bit ago I don't have to go in tomorrow. (see aforementioned: "so sweet!")))
So, I headed out of my apartment to find a PCBong.
For those that don't know - these are EVERYWHERE. Literally, I counted passing 16 one time on my way home from work. Since Koreans are efficient and utilize ALL floors of some buildings for business, they are usually small spaces up on the 3rd of 4th floors, or the basements and. again, are EVERYWHERE.
EVERYWHERE.
Now, these little gems are a favorite of my students. During my first week, I asked the students individually their hobbies and most common came a split between soccer & computer games (each probably 45% of the student population - with the other 10% going to studying, art, piano, classical guitar, reading, etc).
Koreans are famous for loving their computer games. This is the LAND OF STARCRAFT after all. They f***ing love it here. And that expletive is not meant for drama - it's meant to prove just how much they love it.
It's ridiculous. Kids ditch my class to go to the PCBong - facing torment from me the next day if I happen to find out. Even the cool kids at my school play computer games. Even the one with girlfriends!
There's a kid in my after school class who picked Wooks as his English name. It's much like one of his Hangul names. He's a tall, goofy kid thats actually pretty good at basketball. But, he ditches my class often to go the bong and smoke (you knew a joke was coming). I tease him constantly. Every time I see him I ask him about the PCBong and he of course denies it because officially he has to tell me he is going to his academy every day after school. Anyway, we got to talking one day and I jokingly asked him if he takes his girlfriend to the PCBong. His reply "only once" - as if that was honorable. As if he were a poster boyfriend because he held the temptation of computer games off while he was with his girlfriend. I laughed quite hard.
Now, not all PCBong's have scanners. I walked out my building maybe one half block and went into the first one . I showed them a note I scribbled of "scanner" in Korean.
First: "aniyo" (no)
Second: aniyo"
Third: dae (yes)
These three PC Bongs were maybe 35 feet from each other.
So I scanned what I needed to scan.
Then I thought, hey why the hell not play for a bit.
My kids talk about Fifa like its a religion. Starcraft, Warcraft, Sudden Attack - these are common, common, common things I use to express examples of new words in English.
example from teaching........."If your friend calls you and tells you he just played Sudden Attack for four hours and didn't die, you say 'SICK!'
bad example. but you get my point. girls, soccer & computer games are the three cards I play every deal (metaphor for new material) because it's what gets their attention.
So, at the PCBong, after some help getting set up, I played FIFA Online for a little over a while. Surprisingly, I did pretty well.
Full disclosure: I've played quite a bit of FIFA (remember freshman year, Spinuzza?). Never on the computer though. took a while to get used to the controls - using "A" "S" and D" as the main controls, but hey....
I still got it.
(in case you didn't know - the guy in this picture is Wayne Rooney - who a group of student all unanimously agreed I resembled. ehhhh)
My next challenge: the students!
Anyway, proud of myself for partaking in another tradition that one does not consider immediately. Can't wait to tell the kids.
fact:
Any dictionary can call itself "Webster's". The names been in the public domain since the 19th century.
quotation:
“People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.” — Iris Murdoch
e.g.
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