Imagine this: You are in Korea, enjoying
a perfectly delightful meal, Korean style, which means sitting on the floor,
and all of a sudden your meal is interrupted by squabbling over in the corner.
You turn your head and see two or more people huddled together and it looks like
they’re fighting. Fighting? Really? You look a bit more carefully and notice there
are several women quarreling over something. One uses her hip and corners the
other one while she hands something to the lady behind the counter.
Don’t worry, they’re not about to
get into a full on brawl. They are just arguing over who should be allowed to pay
the bill. That’s a real thing here. People actually fight over the honor of who
pays for the meal.
I’ve
been lucky enough to be treated to countless meals by older co-teachers or when
in a group. On one occasion, when I thought it was my turn to do the honoring,
I managed to outsmart my co-teacher( who happens to be the same age as me) by
paying for our meal while she visited the restroom. Sometimes, it’s all about timing and
preparation. On another occasion, I’ve had to quickly force my debit card on
the cashier.
In
other circumstances, when my co-teacher and I run across former students of
hers in restaurants, she has almost always stopped to pay for their meals
without telling them. I love this game, and if I ever run across any of my
students in a restaurant with their friends, I would love to do this, too. That
would also require my Korean to be a little bit better, so I better work on
that.
One might see a pattern here,
though, right? The older individual often pays for the younger individual’s meals,
though it can also depend on who does the inviting and who you're with. With my
Westernized Korean friends, we often do it American style and split the bill.
There
is a situation; however, in which I had not encountered until recently and I’m
still not sure what the proper etiquette is. Here’s what happened:
One day, my co-teacher and I went
to downtown Gyeongju for lunch at Seoga & Cook, a restaurant known for its
upscale atmosphere and more Westernized cuisine. What we hadn’t planned on, was
running into a student and her mother and sister. Eun Jin spotted us directly from the street
and waved to us from the window with her sister as we walked toward the
entrance. We climbed up a couple flights
of stairs to the entrance, walked in and bowed to the Eun Jin’s mother and
waved to Eun Jin before choosing our own seats. After ordering our meal( one
large dish of salad and grilled pork with other sides to share for 18,000 won),
we relaxed into our chairs and sipped on water.
A few moments later, Eun Jin, her sister and
her mother prepared to leave, but not before her mother came over to chat with
my co-teacher. I should have known what was happening as soon as my co-teacher
started to show her distress signals. Eun Jin’s mother paid for our meal! All I
could do was bow because I had no idea what was actually going on until she
told me after the fact. Eun Jin was all grins as she and her sister pranced out
of the restaurant.
Afterward,
my co-teacher sat down all flushed and bothered. “I’m not sure if it’s okay,”
she said. “It would have been better if … only drinks. Then it wouldn’t have
been such a burden.” While I completely
understood this sentiment, I felt like I could still play the foreigner card
and just go with it. What was I going to do, anyway? It’s not like I could have
a conversation in Korean with an insistent mother. It was an incredibly kind
gesture, though it made us a bit uncomfortable.
“I
was going to treat you,” my co-teacher said shaking her head. After a few
moments of muttering and awkward laughing, she gave in and said, “Well, enjoy!”
And
we certainly did.
Hopefully the awkwardness will
fade by the time we have to face Eun Jin in August when school resumes. Though
at the rate I run into students outside of school, another encounter may be
sooner than I expect. In any event, I feel both humbled and honored because this
is a perfect example of Korean hospitality at its finest.
