Saturday – Let’s Go Downtown….

I had to teach Saturday afternoon, so Ida and I decided to stick relatively close to home Saturday morning. Hey, I read about a Ginseng festival downtown on the Daegu web page, want to check it out? Ida was up for it, so we caught a taxi to the medicine market street, where the supposed festival was taking place. We walked in and out of medicine shops, eyeing shelves upon shelves of dried bits and pieces, ready to be mixed and ground to cure whatever ails you. But no festival. Lots of ginseng, the smell permeated the air. I love it. I breathed deeper and deeper as we wound our way through the alleys of shops, almost getting drunk on the pungent smell. I bought ginseng candy. My one comment to Ida, Once you get over the initial dry bark taste, it’s quite delicious. She declined my offers. We walked through the entire medicine market, and couldn’t find anything resembling a festival. Oh, well, maybe it’s at night. Or something. Want to go shopping downtown instead? It’s pretty close.

We crossed the tracks and made our way into the crowded streets of downtown. There, to our surprise, was a street festival. Not the ginseng festival, but a run-of-the-mill street festival. Lots of booths, selling more items that you couldn’t possibly need, scantily clad women dancing to bad techno music promoting this service or that product, face painting, and of course, World Cup souvenirs. We walked for a while, stopping to browse at a couple of booths, then continuing on our way. We received fans (much needed in the rising heat) with “Pil-Sung Korea!” (victory always!) on them. We stopped at a soju sampling booth. We each drank a dixie cup of soju, then were handed a card. The man motioned for us to scratch the silvery layer off. A contest! Woo hoo! Ida scratched hers first. I looked at it and sounded out the word. “Kw-kwang!” You won kwang! I excitedly showed the card to the man at the booth and he handed her a package of kleenex. I scratched my card. Look! I won kwang also! I handed my card to the man, saying, kwang, jushipshee-yo. He smiled and handed me a packet of tissues also.

I had to return home to prepare to teach. Ida stayed downtown, shopping some more. Later that night, she, Sang Jae and I met for dinner. We were telling him all about the day’s events. When we told him about the soju contest scratch and win cards, he busted out laughing. What? What’s so funny? “Kwang.” Yes, that’s what we won. Although, I’ve never heard that word before. I thought kleenex was ‘hu-gee.’ He laughed again. “Pabo girl. Kwang means nothing. You won nothing.”

I thought for a moment. Well, maybe so. But I bet I was the most excited about winning nothing.