Saturday Night

Went out with Prof C and the graduate students tonight. We had Korean barbecue. They have some approximation of this in NY. You go to a restaurant. You wonder why there's this big hole in the middle of the table. Then someone who knows better than you orders for you. Then someone brings coals and puts them in the hole. And there's a grill and meat and you cook it right at your table in the restaurant. Prof C assures me you don't get the real deal on 34th street in NYC. I defer to her greater expertise but just between ourselves, I confess the only difference I noticed was that in NY you get a chair. We also had pear. "Pear" means something else here. You get them in the US being called "Japanese pear," I am told. I'm also told this is incorrect and they're really Korean. There was no one Japanese present to argue the case. At any rate it is a very different fruit, and, to my mind, much better. Like an apple, with a distilled pear flavor. I.e., my two objections to what I have known as pears are 1) they are too mushy, and 2) the flavor is diffuse, dispersed amid too much pulp. The Korean/Japanese/whatever approach to the pear addresses both issues to my satisfaction. Yum.

We also had beer and soju. The beer was Hite. I think I actually prefer "OB." (And this despite the fact that I can't look at it without worrying that somewhere there's a companion product called "GYN.") But anyway it was bottled and everything is worse when its in a can so that helped. Soju seems to be the main traditional Korean alcoholic beverage. My two data points for arriving at this conclusion are (1) it was mentioned in the movie on the airplane (actually, the female lead was given this as an unfortunate name and various puns ensued) and (2) it was the first one Prof C decided I needed to try. (My "first" and "main" presume the existence of another without specific knowledge.) It's taken by the shot. Fairly sweet. Doesn't burn too much. I would conjecture stronger than wine but weaker than whisky. Pretty yummy.

Now, it is time to arrive at abbreviations for the three graduate students. The eldest's first name starts with J. (Or maybe Ch, Korean is ambiguous on this point.) This is the young man who was infinitely helpful to me the day I arrived and I think I called him J then. So J. The younger two we shall call by their "middle" initials, H and B respectively. (A typical Korean name consists of a one syllable family name and two syllable given name. The first letter of the first syllable of the given name does not distinguish these two...)

Anyway, J, Prof C and I ended up having another beer at a bar near to campus. I am not sure whether this was correct or not. What I mean by that is, I was asked whether I would like to, responded in the affirmative thinking that to respond in the negative would be... not wrong but... disappointingly unenthusiastic about things Korean. Afterwards it felt more like it was one of those times you're supposed to say no. (Like that time in India someone offered me tea, and then when I said yes had to go out and buy some.)