PIFF pt. 3
After Yonggeunsa we ate samgyetang for lunch. Samgyetang is a whole chicken stuffed with rice and one ginseng root in a pot of soup. We eagerly took the chicken apart, Dahee and I helping Tanner, whose right arm was still in a cast. He had broken it in a feat of raw and powerful aggression the night we became friends. That same morning our bosses at the NIEED had introduced us and calmly ordered that we prepare two songs for a live taping of the Steve Hatherly show, one of Seoul’s English-speaking radio programs. Dunny, a TaLK scholar from Austin, was to join. A banjo trio. We had seven hours to prepare.
Banjos are about as common in Korea as real Mexican food. I think there are two on Jejudo, Tanner’s and mine. As we practiced on the stairs of the Kyung Hee University auditorium a busload of male dancers arrived. A few shyly approached us as we were going through standard bluegrass tunes, still unsure which songs we would play. The dancers were lithe and painted a paisley green, like peacocks. Soon these most inquisitive called their companions over. Before I knew it we were three Southern boys picking away on a marble staircase in South Korea surrounded by glittery, human-sized, acrobatic peacocks with shiny black hair. They were staring at us though. For once in my life, in this most unlikely of places, I was the exotic one.
There were other acts, most notably a traditional Korean ensemble. As we awaited our stage call in the green room the drummer gave Tanner a lesson. We invited him and his band out for drinks, but they declined, instead boarding a bus to Seoul for their next performance.
Steve Hatherly was still taping when we left. Attendance was mandatory for all TaLK scholars, but we snuck out the back door after completing our duties. There were a few more acts, but watching from stage left wasn’t particularly comfortable, and going into the audience was a gamble. Once we sat down we would be trapped with everyone else no matter if we enjoyed the show or not. We walked for ten minutes to the plastic lawn chairs outside of Family Mart and I listened to Tanner talk about brewing beer. Jason, Josh, and Vadim joined us after they were freed, bringing Cheryl and Su Jin with them. The lawn chairs eventually lost their luster, and we went in search of adventure. Batting cages. What happened next was Tanner’s first defining Korean moment.
Outside of every batting cage in Korean you will find two machines. One is made to gauge the strength of your kick, the other the strength of your punch. For 500 Won (about fourty-five cents) you may have your martial prowess rated on a scale of one to one thousand by a red, yellow, or brown bag attached to a lever and an LCD screen. Tanner’s right ulna can withstand a punch the magnitude of 870. After that it fractures. I did not witness Tanner the warlord in his martial debut. I did see the picture though. It was taken just as his punch had begun to swing back from the outermost point of windup. He is standing on one leg, having leaned back with his entire body to better assist in the bellicose endeavor. In the last moment he would have full use of his arm for two months Tanner is dealing a devastating uppercut, possessed by pure blood lust. That blood lust is why Dahee and I were taking his chicken apart for him. It’s not easy to switch from right to left-handed eating with chopsticks. I believe that bag and LCD screen in Suwon still soldier on.
After lunch we missed the last bus from Yonggeunsa to the Megabox, so we took a cab. Then we saw “Talentime,” a Malaysian drama about a high school talent show and the families involved. Chris told me the director was famous in Malaysia, and she passed away just after the film had been finished. It was her swan song about love, regret, and death. See it if you can. Later I watched “Break Away” and “Night and Fog.” “Mother” is also a great movie.
