Life in a Small World: St. Patrick's Day 2013

You probably wouldn't think that there would be a good solid St. Patty's Day celebration in a place like South Korea. At least a few months ago I wouldn't have imagined much of a celebration of the Irish holiday there. I left home in February thinking, "if it was just one month later". If my departure was put off for just little over a month, I would have been home, with family and friends to celebrate a holiday that I have grown to love. After arriving in South Korea a couple of things made me quickly realize that something special would probably happen on St. Patrick's Day in this Asian country.

First, its the expat community here. There are so many English teachers around, mostly from Canada and the United States but also from England, Scotland, and Ireland. I thought about the great St. Patrick's Day celebration last year in Bucharest, another city with a good number of expats from England and Ireland. With all these Irish, Brits, and Americans around something good is bound to happen. Secondly, its the Koreans. So far, I have spent most of my time with expats but the late-night party culture that I've seen all around me in Incheon and in Seoul tells me that Koreans like to have fun, and of course the Koreans that I've met until now have been quite receptive to westerners. The excitement began about a week ago when I received a notice from my buddy Mike informing me of a St. Patrick's Day event in Seoul on Saturday.

It started off as just the two of us hopping the metro together into the city at 12:30ish in the afternoon. He's a veteran. He's been here for well over a year already and so I was bouncing questions off him for that hour-long metro ride into the city. I quickly realized that Mike hasn't wasted much of his time here. As soon as we arrived he was introducing me to numerous people whose names I wouldn't remember but hopes are that I'll meet them a second, and third time. Maybe at that point the names will stick.

The show took place at a small metro-entrance amphitheater. Coming up out of the subway a wall of green shirts and green balloons rose up just beyond the stage. The place was packed but not so much that it was difficult to walk around. The area in front of the stage was sparse with a small group of young people doing their best jig to some music over the stereo. After grabbing a Guinness and taking a walk around the acts began. On the stage was a small group of Koreans playing, a fiddle, an accordion, a guitar, and a djembe. It was enough to get the crowd moving in front of the stage. Next there was a pretty entertaining show of Korean women on stage tapping to Irish tunes. Before showing up I was expecting to see only westerners hitting the stage so it was quite a delight when the first three acts I saw were Koreans performing and enjoying the Irish style music that I've enjoyed so much over the years.

The final act was an Irish band playing all of those good traditional Irish tunes on the guitar, fiddle, and whistle in the front. By then the area in front of the stage had swelled up and after escaping the crowd for a few short minutes I found it difficult to get back to where all of my new friends were. In the meantime I met a couple of other folks from back home who recognized the Buffalo Sabers hat I was wearing.

The celebrations continued well into the evening as the crowed migrated to Itewon, the neighborhood in Seoul where you find the foreigner hang-outs. The first bar we went to was having its grand opening where I drank some green beer while dancing to some live Irish tunes and chatting with some really interesting folks from PA and Vermont. From the festival out to Itewon a couple of fun Korean guys accompanied us, taking part in the festivities.

Eventually I cut my night short hoping to catch the last train out to Incheon. It was then, alone on the metro staring at the subway map, when I realized that I was way over my head. I had no clue where I was, when I should get off, and whether or not I'd be able to catch the last train at 12. Luckily for me, there was a young Korean guy that knew English nearby and he helped guide me to my stop. I ended up being about 10 minutes late for that last train. I managed in my very elementary broken Korean to take a pretty expensive 45 minute cab ride back to my neighborhood.

Despite my somewhat shocking Seoul subway experience, the warm friendliness I experienced throughout the day by expat and Korean alike made St. Patty's Day in Seoul one of my better celebrations of Irish culture.