Remember the Lanterns

Tae-Bum

I returned to the YMCA friends section to put up my details. I don't expect much in the way of a response since most of it is Korean girls looking for a boyfriend, or foreign boys looking for Korean girls who speak English, but actually I got a reasonable response. I get text messages mostly, five of them in the next few days. All saying the same, but with differences in English level, fluency and accuracy. I get two emails as well, which amounts to seven people wanting to meet me. Turns out that one email and two texts were from women, which I decide I am not at the moment interested in. I text and email back to say cool! I will be in touch later to meet up blah blah something like that. So, like a child in a candy store with money to spend, I start scheduling them in for the weekend. For the first time in my life, I am dating more than one person at a time. If this is even considered dating, I'm not sure yet, I guess I would have to meet these people first before I decide if I am dating or not. So let's see.
It's Friday and I unfortunately have an evening class. 8-10pm. It's kind of weird. The class I known as PreL. It just means Pre-Learner, which in my mind makes no sense at all, because nobody is a pre-learner if they are studying in a class where they are expected to learn. But its name is derived from the fact that the 20 hours in the month are divided into 10 hours with a native English speaking teacher and 10 hours with the native Korean speaking teacher. It's supposed to act as a buffer between studying with a Korean national teacher and a native teacher as they are referred to. Or more of a confidence builder. I saw it was a gimmick. The majority of the students were more than comfortable operating in an English-only environment, but they hadn't studied for awhile, so their confidence was down. In any case, the course, was every Monday and Wednesday and every other Friday. For me 5 times. Which meant that once or twice a month, I worked on Friday from 8-10pm. It was bad timing that I was on today, but fortunately one of the men was fine with meeting me then, because he had work commitments until then anyway.
He picked me up from BYO. I learned later that he had had drinks with his work colleagues. I never understood this drinking and driving is acceptable

culture. But in Korea it seemed to happen all the time. When I enquired about this, he told me that he was fine and that he knew if he had had too much to drink. This being the case he would call a service to drive his car home. It was actually quite common and sometimes the same price as a taxi. You called the number, someone would show up and drive your car home for you with you as a passenger. Fantastic service and very affordable. So, BYO. I'm standing on the curb like a fool, waiting for a black car to show up. Every time a black car drives by, which is like 1 every second, so basically the whole time, I'm standing there trying to get a glimpse inside the car. I get a call.
Hello?
Hello? I'm Tae Bum.
Hi.
I will arrive BYO soon.
Ok thanks. I am waiting outside. See you soon.
Then I realised that this was perhaps not the best idea. Getting into a strangers car at 10pm on a Friday night. I only know his name and that he works a lot (what Korean doesn't?).
He picks me up. He doesn't seem dangerous. Actually I think he is nervous. I smile. I make small talk. He is just driving. We go to a restaurant. It's on the restaurant street of Daegu, deu-ran-gil where large and slightly more expensive restaurants that seem to cater to large work groups during the week, and families on the weekend. Since today is Friday, it's definitely the after work crowd – mostly men in suits. It's smoky inside. I wasn't expecting dinner but he orders some sort of stew, some sort of pork dish, called bossam, plus there's the abundance of regular side dishes. Once the food arrives, Tae Bum seems to relax a bit. He smiles, and I say:
Thanks for meeting me tonight!
No thank you! It's exciting to have a foreign friend.
We actually get along reasonably well. He is probably mid-thirties and I find out, unmarried. I don't ask for more details on this topic. We discuss movies, Korean pop music, my life in Korea, his work. I do not mention YS, just that I came back because I wanted to continue to explore the culture and broaden my teaching experience to include adults. Plus, I like