An Austin Translation
Austin native Rebecca Rosenberg has been living in South Korea teaching English, and she wants to share her experiences abroad with all of Austin. Austinist believes that we could all use some Korean culture.
After nine months away from Austin, working as an English teacher in South Korea, I most miss lying on the grass with a margarita, relaxing at the meat market that is Barton Springs, with a Shady Thing pilfered from the Shady Grove patio….I miss Moonquake Shakes and pricey but oh-so yummy Juice Joint smoothies, which help to purge the toxins of last night’s Lone Star fest….and I even miss the guys in white t-shirts and grippin’ pants who are so totally uber-cool that they can’t bear to give you the time of day from their sweatband watch, much less have a normal conversation that isn’t about what’s going on at Beauty Bar tonight or how cool that last show at Emo’s was.
Actually, living in Suwon, about thirty minutes by bus to the south of Seoul, one does get exposed to some pretty bitchin’ night life. The area surrounding Hongik University, affectionately known to area residents as “Hongdae” is as close to a music district as this country’s gonna get. The bars stay open ‘till the drunks go home, and there are plenty of drunks. Like Austin, there is a show every weekend, though the variety of genres is not so developed. Many of the local bands are temporary indie-incarnations made up of teachers, and others are traveling acts who have found a niche in Seoul, and thus make frequent stops…one example is Australia’s The Cants. And still others are Korean/weigukin (foreigner) mixes. But the majority are Korean punk, pop-punk, and death core bands whose members look like they just stepped out of 1986, with white jackets studded on every spare inch of leather, plaid pants and mohawks, or even better, a bouffant segueing into a mullet (Korea’s own infusion to the scene). One band with a chick singer was facetiously renamed Rainer Korea by some bystanders.
The amount of big touring bands is also limited. The biggest acts that have come here in the past year were MUSE and NOFX. I heard some rumors about Jay-Z. But mostly we have to hear and read about all of the amazing acts that go to the neighboring country of Japan (who Koreans absolutely despise by the way-partly for historical reasons, and in my personal opinion, partly out of jealousy that they aren’t as hip). Concerts here are poorly publicized, even if you read Korean, which I do. So you often find out too late. Also, tickets are quite expensive; MUSE tickets were $87 bucks for the cheap seats in a gymnasium on a Wednesday night.
And there are still more differences. Here the small piles of puke sprinkled along the sidewalks lead to business men in chrome suits holding each other up at nine o’clock at night, (meaning they started drinking on the job at three or four - ed. note: that's f'n sweet). I would almost rather see the aforementioned hipsters staggering, laughing, and singing some Pixies classic at the top of their lungs. Here you might get a group of raucous weigukin punks sitting in an all night kimbap joint (think sushi rolls without the raw fish) and singing the quintessential Konglish (Korean-English) pop song whose only comprehensible lyrics are “rock and roll” — which turns into a chorus of “rock and roll—duh nuh nuh nuh nuhh-nuhh—“
This may seem like a whiny deluge of culture-less un-appreciation, but in truth, life here is a pleasure. The easy money, adorable kids and stoner work schedule make it pretty easy for an Austinite to adapt. There is plenty of art to imbibe and even some ancient culture left over from before the capitalist super-boom of the last fifty years, which, by the way, has left Koreans in one big identity crisis. But that’s another article. Yes, in the land of feathered hair, men with perms, and manufactured boy bands, I have managed to find bars that spin actual records, bands that play actual instruments, and even a few record stores near Myeongdong station of the Seoul subway, an underground haven of dusty, crackly vinyl that plays on actual turntables. Another of Hongdae’s gems is not really made of wax, but bears the name Vinyl, a tiny wooden shack which serves 4 and 5 dollar take away cocktails in classy plastic bags. No, not the thin kind you see grubby kids in Mexico clutching to keep the straw in the horchata, but thick Zip-lock style bags with built in straw-holes….and yea, you can drink them on the way to the next bar without fear of the TABC. ASSAH! (that’s Korean for “sweet, bro.”)
And though I now crave kim chi on a daily basis, I know this slimy spicy fermented concoction is just a temporary substitute, a way to calm the inner need I feel for tomatillo salsa and escabeche, the Mexican kim chi made of pickled carrots, jalapeño, and onions. Late night alcohol absorption here consists not of veggie dogs and Hoek’s heavy-metal pizza slices, but of street carts selling fried dumplings, various meats-on-a-stick, and dokboki, a cup of fermented rice cake served in an electric orange tangy sauce. I say about the street food here what I have said about Korean alcohol and the myriad of readily available over-the-counter medications, “it’s cheap and it works.”
So as an Austinite of over twenty years who has taken a sabbatical from the oppressive heat of the River City, I have realized that I have much to be thankful for. I too declared that the music scene was “dead” when Liberty Lunch became a parking lot, and again when club after club on Sixth Street gave way to shot chugging shacks and coke havens, er, dance clubs. But still, I shed more than one lonely tear in March during SXSW, and every time I get a Chronicle sent from home (thanks Mom) and see all the great local bands I am missing on a Tuesday night I think “thank God for Red River!” So hopefully those reading this while standing outside of Parts and Labor will stop concentrating on being super-cool for just a minute, and next time you go to a show you will think of me and bob your goddamn head a bit.
