Learning Your Lesson (NOT!)

Last night and today my body is sending me little twinges in my lower back. That is its’ way of reminding me that I’m not as young in body as I am at heart. You would have thought that I would have learned my lesson two weeks back when it took me almost a week to recuperate from pretending that I was a teenager again and playing with the ‘kiddies’ in the mosh pit at the Big Bang concert. Now most people would have remembered the lesson and refrained from making the same mistake twice. But nooooo, yesterday I just had to go and play with them again. This time it was Field Day at the Korean Language School that I attend.

One of the things that I appreciate about taking this class is that it incorporates more than just learning the language. It also incorporates the culture. It’s really funny to tell my husband that I *HAVE* to watch Kpop and KDrama and show him the syllabus, “See, it’s my homework!” The reverse is also true. It is hilarious to see the teacher’s face when he starts to explain the rules of traditional Korean games and I finish his sentences. “How do you know about gonggi?” “Running Man!” I inform him.

Running Man is a popular Korean variety show. However, it is nothing at all like what we think of as ‘variety’ television. I often wonder how the cast’s contract reads. I imagine that it must be something along the lines of: ‘we can show up any where, at any time, and require you to do any thing that we tell you and you can’t say no.’ In many of these episodes, traditional games are played, but there is *always* a twist. Gonggi, for example, is similar to the children’s game that we know as jacks. In one episode, they had to play the game, but first had to find all the pieces which were hidden scattered around a shopping mall. The first team to find a set and finish the game were the winners of that particular mission. Oh, and one of the team members had to do it without being seen by anyone else.

One of the things that the show is best known for is ‘name tag elimination.’ Their name tags are stuck to their shirts with Velcro. It is a free-for-all of tearing the tags off the other players. The last one standing is the winner. There are numerous variations on the theme but there are only two rules in Running Man: 1) Protect your name tag at all times. 2) Trust no one.

So yesterday the school was divided into teams and given ribbons. Half the school was red; the other half blue. As soon as mine was placed, I covered it with my hands. You could tell who the Running Man fans were. They all laughed. And there were a lot of them. It’s really great when you don’t have to explain your jokes to people.

The first game that we played was ‘Flip the Plates.’ The plates are double sided. Half the plates are placed with one color showing; half with the other. Then it is a madhouse as you try and turn as many plates to your color while the other team is doing the same. The team with the most plates showing their color after a certain time limit is the winner. The pink team took the first round. Our blue team rallied and took the second. We lost the tie-breaker by one plate. It was the last game that we lost.

The second game was a potato sack relay race and self explanatory. The third game was dodge ball but the rules are slightly different from what we are accustomed. You play in partners. One of those is the ‘queen’; the other the ‘protector.’ If the ball hits the protector, they are not out as they are defending their queen. However, if the queen is hit, then both players are out. Team with the last pair standing is the winner. As fate would have it, one of the members of our team had a daughter on the opposing team. Whenever he had the ball, he passed it to her. The rest of us made sure he didn’t get the ball after the second time he did it. Yep, Running Man Rule #2 in action!

The final game was a relay game of sorts. We first had to spin around. While completely disoriented, we had to run to the next station. We all looked rather tipsy as we worked our way there where we had to beat one of the teachers at ‘kai, bai, bo’ (rock, paper, scissors). On my turn, it took me five times to beat her as we kept throwing out the same thing. After that we had to run to the next station where we pulled a mission from a stack. These all said different things. My missions was to find someone wearing shorts and run back to the start holding hands with them then return back to them for our stamp. Then I had to run back to start where we had to ‘high touch’ (high five) the next team member in line. First team to have all members complete all three stages.

The winning team of the day got little goodie bags with treats in them. The losers had to split whatever was leftover. Afterwards we had a picnic lunch. My Lizzy girl took it as a personal mission that our class was going to be the envy of all the other classes. She made triangle kimbap and Kimchi pancakes. And indeed, everyone wandered over and oohed and ahhed over our feast. There was lots of wonderful conversation and wonderful memories made.

But once again, I ache from head to toe and I have come to the inescapable conclusion that I’m really not as young as I used to be. And since my body insists on betraying me every time I want to do something that I’m ‘too old’ to do, I guess I really only have one choice – I guess that I’m going to have to go into training. I wonder, what do you think my chances are of recruiting Running Man cast member Kim Jong Kook as a personal trainer?