The excessive consumption of soju

Blogging | January 31, 2010

Dear Grandma,

If you have found my blog, please do not read on. I’m fairly confident you have not located me here on the World Wide Web, since you don’t have the internet connected at home. In fact, I’m not entirely sure you know what the internet is, as I have never seen you use any form of technology introduced after the late 1970s. But I’m putting this disclaimer here anyway, just to be safe.

The reason I don’t want you to read on is because of a conversation we had at your place about a year ago. Remember when I came over for dinner and you told me you would cook dumplings? And then I arrived there and you hadn’t cooked dumplings and I was really disappointed? But you made up for it with the bread and butter pudding? That night, as I recall, I told you about a recent social gathering where I had consumed a couple of alcoholic beverages.

“I was quite tipsy,” I remember telling you.

Disappointment washed across your face.

“Oh darling, that doesn’t sound very nice,” you said.

I made a mental note not to mention excessive consumption of alcohol in your presence again.

This blog post will definitely contain references to excessive consumption of alcohol.

Bye Grandma. I love you. Speak to you soon. Do not read on past the line.

____________________________

I felt that we had so much in common.

Firstly, he was a foreigner in Seoul.

Secondly, he was riding the subway home at 6.30am on a Sunday.

Thirdly, he could not keep his eyes open.

I desperately wanted to communicate with him.

The words “have a big night?” went around and around my head, but I could not push them out of my mouth.

His head rocked forward and backwards, his eyes slowly closed and opened.

I decided to leave him be.

The train sped on, across the Han River, before shooting back underground and finally pulling into Seoul National University subway station.

I shuffled out of the carriage, up the escalator, through the ticket counter, up the stairs, down my street, through my building entrance, up the elevator and through my apartment door.

I ripped off my clothes, jumped in the shower and crawled into bed.

The first hint of a sunbeam came through the window, as the memories of the past evening whirled through my mind.

The promise of a quiet night with friends.

Korean barbeque in Hongdae.

The decision to order the second bottle of soju.

The change of location to a nearby singing room.

Hungry Eyes.

My Way.

Billie Jean.

More soju.

More soju.

The songs blurring into one.

Soju on the tiles.

The appearance of a mop.

Burger King.

A cup of Earl grey tea at a nearby café.

The subway home.

Crawling into bed as the sun came up.

When I tell my friend Gemma about these kinds of nights in Korea, her response is always the same.

“Blythe, you went to bed at 9pm at my 21st birthday party! What’s happened to you in Korea?”

She’s right.

I have never been known for my partying ways.

But something is significantly different in Seoul, and that something is soju.

Soju is a Korean alcohol made from rice, which, in my experience, causes people to behave in completely uncharacteristic ways.

One of my good friends, a normally respectable English teacher in Seoul, has been known to steal cookies from Subway (and encourage others to do so) while under the influence of soju.

Another friend has been compelled to climb up a wall at a subway station, after consuming more than an average amount of this dangerous liquor.

For my part, soju has led to me being completely unable to fulfil my role as banker in a tense game of Monopoly.

It has caused me to sing with great passion and feeling in Korean singing rooms.

And it has caused me to be almost unable to move the morning after.

One of the great downfalls of soju is its ability to deliver a killer hangover- the kind of body blow that vodka, beer and wine could never effect.

So why do we Seoul-ites drink it?

The first (and basically only), reason is the price.

A standard 300ml bottle can be purchased for as little as 1000 won (about $1 AUD), and is more than enough to send you straight to a table top with a microphone.

Drink two bottles and you will almost certainly be riding the subway home at 6.30am and trying to make conversation with a drunk, foreign stranger.

Soju, for all its flaws, is one of my favourite things about Korea.

On an unrelated note, one of my other favourite things about Korea is a shop around the corner from me, which I like to call, the Shop That Has Everything.

Ironically, the Shop That Has Everything does not sell soju.

Bizarre Korean fact: It is not polite to fill your own glass of soju. If someone in a position of respect fills your glass (like your boss, or your grandmother), then it is polite to accept the glass with both hands. Similarly if you are pouring a glass for your boss or your grandmother, you should hold the bottle with both hands. I don’t expect I will ever be pouring a glass of soju for my grandmother.