Clubbing in Korea

I returned to the hotel and was confused when I heard a knock on the door and saw Brian, beer in hand, telling me that I had to go out tonight. I was exhausted and had hoped to upload more photos, but this was essentially my last night to experience Korean club culture and since I hadn’t gone clubbin in Korea yet, I was even more convinced when Sam knocked and calmly, but strictly told me that in fact, I was going out.

Once again waiting around on random people in “our group” we made it out to hail a cab. Korean cab drivers are different. They apparently are very selective about who they drive around and opted out of our business as they whizzed by. Everybody told me to get at the forefront because I’m blonde and female, and sure enough a cab came my way. We piled in and held on for dear life as we dashed to the other side of Seoul. The first bar we headed to was called Eden, which is one of the top bars in Korea…however, that’s among the wealthier working class. And being that it was a Thursday night, nobody was really there. Our 20something Korean chaperones (who, yes, came clubbing with us) told us there was a livelier club 5 minutes away so after downing my free vodka/OJ we headed over to NB (noise basement) and before we were even halfway there, I was already drunk. Keep in mind that I had a small bowl of soup for dinner back at Everland 5 hours prior…didn’t take much. NB was indeed much livelier with tons of poshly dressed Korean guys and girls. Korean guys wear outfits just short of suits when they go out. Oh and they’re mostly all good dancers, too. I’ve always been disappointed by the “dancing” at college parties, but now I’m going to be even more disengaged because instead of instantly rubbing their junk all over you (without asking), Korean guys play it a little slower and actually dance with you. Although the music was mostly the same old lame American pop music, there were a few Korean songs intermixed. And while the Korean music mixed in with the American music, the Americans mixed in with the Koreans.

Normally opting to dance by myself to avoid how monotonous and gross grinding is, I decided to find a guy to dance with, telling myself it was a cultural experience. I spotted my dance partner and my friends literally pushed me into him. Initially kind of awkward because he didn’t speak much English and my Korean is limited to “hello” “goodbye” “thank you”, it didn’t take long before the universal language of dance started to make sense. And instead of being limited to the same old rubbing, skanky moves of grinding, it was almost like a dance off between us. We would mimic each others’ moves or pass it off to one another. On some songs, we danced dramatically close to each others’ faces and it was like a K-Pop video (which are the epitome of drama). It was flirtatiously torturous. Koreans are notorious for being shy, and I was almost in awe of the fact that this way of flirting was actually working. It was reserved but aggressive at the same time. I won’t declare it on customs, but this is something I’m bringing back to the U.S. And despite the heavy beats of the music, I thought it was interesting that my Korean dance buddy would flutter his hands over my body; but then other times he would hold on to me in a bear hug almost. After nearly every dance he would say I was funny, cute or something I couldn’t quite make out. Probably after dancing for 2 hours, he said he had to go meet up with his friends, but he desperately tried to get me to leave with him. Considering that he essentially spoke no English and I was absolutely not going to leave with a stranger in Seoul, and was just dancing with him to say I did, you won’t be shocked to find that I stayed at the club and continued to shake it for all the onlooking Korean boys.

At 3 am, sweaty and haggard, we headed back to the hotel and I leaped into bed, not looking forward to the alarm that would go off in 4.5 hours…