After the show, we took an hour long bus ride back to
Incheon, where I was staying for the night. It was late in the evening at this
point, so we were all pretty exhausted. Our previous plan was to stay up late
after the show and drink to our heart’s content. As mundane as this activity
sounds, it was actually becoming a very rare occurrence with these current friends.
One of them was actively looking for a full time job, while working on the
weekend. Her free time was limited to the weekday, making the time to actually
spend time with her short and rare. My other friend was a teacher for three
years in Incheon. This year would be her last as she had recently been hired
for a job back home.
As the bus lumbered along through the city streets
and on the highways, I slowly drifted in and out of sleep. My friend had
suggested that we try to sleep on the bus in order to give us energy for
staying up all night. I wasn’t physically tired as much as I was mentally
exhausted from the madness of the work week. I stared out the window, watching
the neon lights flash by. It felt like the first rest I had been given all
week.
When we finally came to our stop, we had not eaten
since before the show. Being late and with few options, we made our way to
that always reliable, but never good for you golden beacon in the night:
McDonald’s.
Inside there were only a few people, not a surprise
considering what time it was. We ordered our food and sat down to eat, only to
be interrupted by a large group of drunken individuals. It’s normally human
nature to do two things when under the influence of alcohol: turn into a quiet
recluse and hide in the corner, letting the demon drink flow away from your
body or turn into a loud obnoxious asshole whose sole purpose is to let
everyone know that he’s like, totally drunk bro.
Guess who sat by us?*
As we sat and ate our meal in relative silence, the drunken
group continued to get louder. The other diners, including their girlfriends,
tried their best to ignore them. After a few minutes, I heard a loud shout and
the sound of small objects falling on the floor. I turned around and was
greeted to a scene of beads from a bracelet bouncing all over the floor. The drunken
guy had apparently broken one of the other girl’s bracelets in his drunken
stupor.
This by itself wouldn’t be too bad. Drunk people
break shit, that’s a given. What happened next however was something that I
didn’t anticipate and provided some excitement to an otherwise routine trip to
McDonald’s.
Behind the drunken group, sat a father, mother and
baby. One of the beads flew back and hit the baby in the face and cased the
baby to start crying. The father, understandably angry at the accident stood up
and walked over to the table. He made his way over and put his hand on the
shoulder of the drunk man and asked him to apologize for the incident.
If you have ever been around a drunk person and they
fall into the loud asshole category, you more than likely know that asking them
to do anything short of drinking some more will end badly with blind,
unwarranted anger. Korea, I witnessed, is no different.
The drunk man threw the hand off his shoulder and
stood up to go face to face with the father. Just like high school and the
movies, harsh words were quickly exchanged between the two** before they
started attacking each other, the drunk man flailing randomly at the father and
the father going straight for the drunk guy’s throat.
Now the whole restaurant was at attention with the
other drunken friends now trying to hold back the drunk guy and the mother
trying to hold back her husband while holding the baby. Soon the girlfriend of
the guy was going over to the wife trying to talk her down and make sure the baby
was fine. The fight turned into a shouting match and soon, a police officer
came in and began talking to both the fighters. It was interesting to note that
this officer was
a. Unarmed
b. The
friendliest police officer I have ever seen
c. Made
no attempt to arrest or even fine the drunk guy. Even though he yelled and
screamed in his face.
After the officer had left, the drunk crowd still
hung around outside the McDonald’s trying to play off the perhaps salve what
dignity they had left, most likely lost among the beads and fallen French fries
on the floor.
The father went back to his meal like nothing had happened. He
had a look of anger on his face but it slowly gave away for a look of accomplishment.
He was proud, he fought off a drunk guy for his infant child. He probably felt
like a boss, deservedly so.
We finished our meal and as we left the restaurant
we were initially quiet but slowly began laughing and talking again. Sometime
like this you couldn’t make up if you tried, and would probably never happen
again. Seeing it together was something we would probably remember for long
time and would eventually be happy we witnessed together.
We went to my friend’s apartment and ended up
staying up to 5 AM laughing, talking and enjoying our company together. I was
deliriously happy, partially assisted by the alcohol, but mainly because of being
in the presence of good friends combined with the excitement and unpredictably of
the night.
It was a fun weekend with friends I don’t see very
often. I never ask for much from my weekends, just to relax and have a moderately
good time. The past weekend delivered in spades, it was my ideal perfect
weekend. Good company, fun times and enough memories to last for a long time.
I always appreciate the little moments, for one day,
I know they no longer will be here and all I’ll have is just memories in the
end.
“I was thinking how nothing lasts, and what a shame
that is.”
* The loud, obnoxious asshole
** The choice words they used we’re Korean curse
words one of which is:
씨발놈아! (Shi-bal-nom-a!) - "You motherfucker!"
To me, Shi-bal sounds like “Shiba”, as in Shiba Inu,
the little Japanese dog. Since I couldn’t find any other appropriate pictures,
here’s a picture of a Shiba Inu.
 |
| Almost makes you forget about that fight... |
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