The events that unfolded at the training were quite amusing. I can't really say what happened at the training because it was a strange beyond words and slightly incriminating, but I can say that there was a lot of singing, dancing and ambiguously gay moments (hm... that sounds like a typical weekend in SK when you're hanging with Koreans, actually).
(As you can see in the picture below, there was a lot discussion about academia and teaching methods at our "training")
I will share with you this though, the basis of my title:
We were eating dinner at our little country-side hotel. Throughout three hours, we had kim chi, sashimi, tempura, duinjangjigae (rotten bean soup), beer and of course, soju. I thought I was going to throw-up at times from all the food and beer filling my stomach, but I somehow managed to persevere through the food onslaught. Midway through the meal, one of the P.E. teachers suggested we all try a green pepper.
Oh, the ubiquitous green pepper: the side dish that is always sitting there at my table at Korean restaurants, and despite not having any nutrition or flavor, the Koreans still eat them. They usually dip it into a red, spicy and sweet sauce first and then take a big bite out of the pepper. People frequently fan their mouth to show how hot the pepper is after eating it, to which I would love to respond: "then don't eat the fucking pepper."
So we all took a bite out of this pepper (which was curiously cut into pieces this time, rather than being whole, as I usually see it). I bit my piece and chewed it thoroughly -- there was no pang of pain... it was not bad at all. After about 8 seconds, like the killer whale springing up from beneath the frozen ice to snatch the sea lion as it drinks water, the spice hit me -- my face got warm and my eyes started to water. I drank some tea water to cool off my mouth. When that didn't work, I opened a beer and drank that. There was unspeakable pain allover my face. Through the tears building in my eyes, I could see the PE teacher laughing hysterically. "It's special-made go chu or pepper -- Chong Yang go chu. Very spicy!" said the PE teacher. Thanks for the letting me know AFTER I ate it.
Everyone was having a good laugh at my suffering when the vice-principal, in his drunken state, stumbled over to me and started yelling English nonsense. He then pointed to his penis and started yelling, "CHONG YANG GO CHU!!!!"
I tried my best to laugh, though the spice of the pepper immobilized it. "Your penis is a hot pepper???"
"YES-UHHH!!!!!" he said in his thick accent. Laughter erupted.
After everyone calmed down and the fire burning on the dance floor of my mouth has subsided, a teacher explained to me that "pepper" and "penis" are both pronounced "go chu" in Korean. I was relieved -- I was thinking it was weird that a grown man would say that there's a hot pepper in his pants. Actually, it still was kind of weird anyway.
P.S. my co-worker later explained to me how the Koreans eat the hot peppers: they take one bit and then swallow, so as not to squirt the spicy oils allover the inside of the mouth.
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