Coffee Helps

An unexpected consequence of coming to live in Korea has been the opportunity to learn about and experience cultures other than Korea’s. By far the most interesting of these to me so far has been South Africa, having had virtually no information about that country until recently. But then I moved to Korea, started working with a South African girl, met several other South Africans through her, and this weekend I even got to experience the real South Africa for a day… albeit in Seoul, but still!

Excitement about the World Cup is mounting in Korea. Koreans are mad about football, or soccer as it’s known here, and I have very much enjoyed seeing merchandise and t-shirts appearing with slogans such as “Let’s together go to the Africa!”. And although I’m not much of a football fan, I must admit that I’m getting into the spirit of things – particularly because the South Africans around me are obviously wildly excited about this one.

And so, along with some other Irish friends, I was made an honorary South African for the day and headed off to Seoul to spend Saturday at a pre-World Cup braai in Nanji Park. A braai is a traditional South African BBQ, involving meats I’d never heard of, which the South African population of Korea had imported especially for the occasion. There must have been about 500 people there, all eating boerewors, biltong, and the most amazing lamb chops I have ever tasted in all my life. All washed down with cool wine and beer in the blazing heat of the afternoon… lekker!

Ah yes, the heat. It’s getting a bit silly now, by the way. 25°C by breakfast time and in the thirties by lunch, not bothering to go down to a sensible temperature so that you can get to sleep at night, that sort of thing.  And it’s only the start of June! (Still trying not to think about July and August.) A few of us were overheating horribly by the time we actually got to the braai venue, thanks to walking in the scorching heat whilst trying to carry all our supplies for the day. Sitting in the shade of the gazebo, sipping on wine and fanning ourselves, we felt much better, but it was still seriously hot. Dancing in the sunlight as if it were a dance floor in a night club probably didn’t help, either, but we were saved by a child who mischievously sprayed the crowd with water from his water gun. No doubt expecting to be told off, he was both amazed and delighted to be given a hearty cheer of approval from a crowd who turned desperately towards him and held up their arms. He spent the rest of the day spraying water over dancers.

A great time was had by all, and I had the wonderful experience of being on the “dancefloor” when everyone spontaneously started singing the national anthem. I’d never even heard the South African national anthem before, and there I was surrounded by all these passionate people with their hands on their hearts and their glasses/tumblers/entire bottles of wine waving in the air as they belted it out in a way that made goosebumps appear on my arms. In Korea.

I fall in love with this place a little bit more with every passing week.

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