Friday, March 16, 2007

Kiss Me I'm Irsh


So MetroDad and I have always joked about the strange similarities between our lives. The whole French first name thing, the whisky thing, the blogging thing, the whiskey thing, and finally the scotch thing. But the other day when I read his post on MetroDad I just had to shake my head and realize that there is no avoiding the fact that one of us is the imaginary creation of the other. We'll have to fight it out who gets to be Tyler Durden but in the mean time I wanted to post our posts in honor of St. Patrick's Day.




You may not know this but Koreans and the Irish share a special affinity. More often than not, people call us the "Irish of the East." We're both hard-working people with chips on our shoulders and a reputation for being tough, mean, chain-smoking drunks. We love boozing, singing, and getting into fights (preferably all on the same night.) Our people share a history of oppression from neighboring countries and have a homeland still divided by politics and rage. We'd kill or die for our families. And nobody eats more fucking cabbage than we do.


And here's an excerpt from the post I was writing for St. Patricks Day.


Oh yeah what was I talking about...yes Koreans are the Irish of Asia. We love to drink, we love to fight, and we love to spout poetry in long drunken monologues. We have a history of oppression by an imperialistic island monarchy that loves tea and some say....have historically bad teeth.

Crazy. MetroDad never saw my draft, and I had first written it when I joined Ricedaddies...I just decided to save it for St. Patricks Day. Here's the full unfinished post. Have some Guinness or Bulmers maybe a bit of Jameson's or Tullamore Dew. Hold a bit of Ireland in your heart and think of her beautiful green hills. A drink for all my friends...Slainte!

The Koreans are the Irish of Asia. I've been sayin it all my life. So I have this Irish thing...former life or whatnot. I don't know how to explain it, but it came back to me one night when I was singing to my boy. So I was singing Danny Boy to my son like I do every night, and he was smiling like a good Irish kid and towards the hard part of the song...you know the hard part right? You don't? You should. Anyway...he starts clapping and I'm like...what? I haven't taught him that yet. So I think...there it is that Irish thing rearing up again. I thought it was a fluke until last night when I was telling the Mrs. about it and she didn't believe me so I started singing again and just like before he starts beaming and clapping. Now I know I'm genetically 100% pure Silla Bone-Rank Korean but I think my son definitely has that wierd thing I've had for as long as I remember...the thing that says come home we miss you. And so far it's just Danny Boy that does it. When I sing Straight Out of Compton he just stares. Oh yeah what was I talking about...yes Koreans are the Irish of Asia. We love to drink, we love to fight, and we love to spout poetry in long drunken monologues. We have a history of oppression by an imperialistic island monarchy that loves tea and some say....have historically bad teeth. But as a racially insensitive imperfect human being, sometimes I do think about race. I think about how I never think about it and just kinda walk through this world. But we're often categorized and held up to stereotypes. Yeah blah blah blah...but I think of situations like barroom fights. I think about how I would tell the story to my boys.

Henri: Damn dude I was outside the Irish Bank last night and out of nowhere this guy's all flashing and I'm like what and he's like wassup and so we get into it and I nail him and he's like all I'm gonna get my boys and I'm like all go back to high school and he's all whatever and he leaves and I'm like dude that's what I thought.

And then I think here's his version...

Dude: Man I was at the Irish bank and this little Asian guys was all whatup and I'm like get outta here little man and this little Asian guy hits me in the mouth for nothing!

I mean...why do I have to be the "Asian Guy" in the story?

7 comments:

Katie said...

this is great. great post! happy st. patrick's day! and congrats for being a 'blog of note' :)

Anonymous said...

Cool post! I never new Koreans were so bad-ass, guess I'll tread more carefully around them from now on... hehe. Anyway, happy St. Patrick's Day!

Unknown said...

irish=korean

kimchee=corned beef and cabbage

ignorance=bliss

Henri said...

darryl=deep

daddy in a strange land said...

That's it! Sub in kimchi for the boiled cabbage!

Remember "The Commitments"? If the Irish are the blacks of Europe, and the Koreans are the Irish of Asia, then how come y'all can't get along in South Central? Heh.

Hope your St. Pat's was a good one, Henri.

Anonymous said...

Absolutely....I've lived and worked in Korea for eight years now. However, many ex-pats don't even know this. Not only do Koreans have an infinity for the Irish, they also have one for the French who live in Quebec, Canada. Just had to include the "Canada"...since it is one country still at the moment. Cheers

Anonymous said...

hehehe...great post. and lol @ darryl=deep