Mimes, Makeup, and Mastication

Hello Lovers of Phallic Food,

Welcome to Foley in Korea. There's little time, so let's just jump right it.

What’s news in Korea? Well, the other day, I went out for a gaebul feast. Gaebul is a choice Korean seafood, better known by its scientific name Urechis unicinctus. They are a breed of long, pulsating, pink and brown colored cylinders with strange openings on the top. In English, they are known as Penis Fish.

No really, here’s the Wikipedia page, according to which they are also known as the “Fat Innkeeper Worm.” If that’s not innuendo, it should be.

Before sampling this phallic beast, I was told they tasted like “condoms soaked in fish brine.” Now, while that description surely got my appetite kick-started, your might need a little more, so here goes: they’re served raw, and continue to pulsate, almost as if they’re breathing, for as long as an hour after they are dead. But Dan Foley is nothing if he is not fearless, and so he prepared himself, downing a couple of bottles of maehwaju and go to the fish market (Maehwaju is what’s known as “flower wine,” but despite the soft name, I promise, it gets you tanked).

So, after swallowing a few Penis Fish, I finally can dispel all the rumors and tell you the truth about their exotic and long sought-after flavor: they taste like condoms soaked in fish brine.

…not that I know what condoms soaked in fish brine taste like.

Here’s a video:

Now, I’m sure a lot of you came across the article on the Miss Korea Pageant Contestants of 2013 and the controversy surrounding it. For those of you who didn’t, this picture should more or less paint you a picture.

(Note, these are twenty different women. Oh, now I get it).

Here’s the thing: I, more than many, have been public about my issues regarding the prolific plastic surgery levels in this country, and how they’re all trying to attain the same look and how beauty shouldn’t be a homogenous idea sculpted by a surgeon and blah blah blah, but guess what? These girls don’t look the same. Not even a little bit. This isn’t, believe it or not, a case of too much plastic. This is a case of way too much makeup.

Holy shit, right? For a full listing of these girls without the power of makeup, see here: 

For my next piece, I have to reminisce about my old Alma Mater, Boston College. Yes, back in my glory days, I remember, after a grueling winter, the happiness we would feel on that first day of spring. The sun would be up in the sky, while down below, birds would chirp and woodland creatures would play. But most importantly, the guys would pull out sunglasses and lawn chairs, because it was the day women would strip from their restrictive snow pants and don their skirts of liberation. We called this day “Skirt Day,” and it was good.

I told you this story so you understand why I love Korea. In Korea, every day is Skirt Day. Even when the weather is frigid and the streets are icy, women still refuse to wear anything but heels and skirts. This fashion decision is responsible for most of my happiness in day-to-day life, and now the fascist government of Korea, who clearly hates fun, is trying to take this away from me. They recently passed the "Over-exposure Act," stating that women who show will be slapped with a fifty dollar fine. At first, I was devastated. How dare they try to inhibit the rights of these women? Travesty! Travesty, I say!

But then everything was okay. Korean women simply ignored the newly passed law, and police officers just really don’t seem to care that much. The system works. 

Restrictions are not always a bad thing, though. Take Korean Air, for instance. These days, it is known as one of the world’s premier airlines, a monument of what the flying experience should be (read: hot stewardesses and good food). A decade ago, they did not always have such a pristine reputation. Back then, they had the nasty habit of crashing. A lot. The reason for this remained a mystery for the longest time, as the Korean pilots were as, if not more, qualified than other pilots around the world and the planes met rigid safety requirements. Then finally, the truth came to light, and it all made sense. The massive problem in the cockpit turned out to be that Korean pilots spoke Korean.  

One more time, the problem was that Korean pilots spoke Korean.

What the hell? Allow Lorenzo to explain. Korean is a complicated language and not just for grammatical structure and syntax. Confucianism enters all aspects of life, especially language. The result is a complicated system of respect built on a hierarchy of age and position. What that means is you can’t tell someone older than you that they’re wrong, which is kind of a big deal if you’re the co-pilot and responsible for hundreds of lives. You see, the co-pilot is always younger. So, when communicating a problem like “hey, you know we haven’t deployed the landing gear and are all about to die in a fiery death, right?” you can’t really just come right out and say it. Instead, you have to tip-toe around it, saying something like, “would you mind if we ran one more check of the–” Oops. Everyone’s dead.

The solution: They made all their pilots speak English in the cockpit. Problem solved. I’m just glad the stewardesses are safe.

While Korean is a beautiful language, this isn’t the only instance of the system of respect being wildly impractical. In fact, a friend of a friend exploited the hell out of this when he worked for Samsung America. He was a few years out of college and had a reasonably good job, one where he often had to travel to Seoul for business. He was Kyopo, that is, Korean-American, and spoke fluent Korean. But when he arrived in Korea to meet the business executives, he gave them the impression he only spoke English. Why?

Every one of his Kyopo co-workers who had done work in the past were immediately ranked in terms of age and status when they met with the higher-ups at Samsung due to the implications of language. But with English, he was suddenly a foreigner and on equal footing with them. What did this get him? Respect. Better treatment, better food, and 5-star accommodations in the Hyatt. Interesting…

In complete other news, I recently went to Chuncheon, an area of Korea known for its mouth watering dalkgalbi, boneless chicken grilled in a stew of spicy sauce and vegetables.

It ranks among my all time favorite entries in Korean cuisine, but that wasn’t the real reason for my excursion. I went down to Chuncheon for their annual mime festival, the largest in the world. And it was awesome, particularly for the utter lack of mimes.

Why is it called a mime festival? I don’t know. Instead, it was a giant water festival, complete with fire hoses blasting spectators and militant youths armed with squirt guns and buckets and the sole mission to make sure that nothing, I mean nothing, stayed dry. It is hard to sum up into words how truly amazing this very esoteric experience was. The best my words can do is surmount is this one snapshot memory I possess, where my entire world was this chaos of water, while hundreds of people were lost in a massive artificial downpour on an immaculate sunny day while an intoxicating mix of bizarre dubstep blasted from the back of passing trucks. Also, I was in a monkey costume.

The whole event makes the news every year, and I ended up getting interviewed. You can see it here. You just have to download the client to watch it (I promise to harm will come to your computer).

On a final note, I am a bit disappointed with the recent turn of events. I was hoping to spend my last two months in this great land being an unemployed scumbag finishing my book and growing a beard. But, knowing my terrible luck, I got offered a new job the week after I finished my contract. So, for the last few weeks, I’ve been working as a writer/marketer/consultant for this startup. It’s basically a restaurant app that finds your “food personality” and recommends restaurants to you based off that personality. It’s called MangoPlate, and it’s still beta, but available for download. Currently, it only covers restaurants in Seoul, but we hope to expand to other cities in the future. Download the app or like the Facebook page if you get the chance. It would make this writer a very happy boy.

Much, much more to report, but there is so little time. Get back at you, soon.

Much love everybody.

Food Guy