All You Need on Friday Night is Soju and a Band-aid

I took this photo at a Megamart supermarket in Busan.  This is one brand of Korean soju, a distilled "liquor" preferred by many Koreans.  I think it has about 20% alcohol and can do a whole hell of a lot of damage.  I don't know if the marketers of this product wanted to make it ironic or if they just thought "Oh, a band-aid would make a nice free item with our soju."  Either way it's quite hilarious.  If you've read anything about drinking culture in Korea you will find much literature on a phenomenon that people from the U.S. would call "binge drinking."  Binge drinking back home is commonly associated with college students and alcoholics but here it is common amongst many people who are of, and probably not of, drinking age.  Although I've seen some pretty wasted women, soju binge drinking is quite popular amongst men.  It is not uncommon to see people passed out on the street, in an alley, on a bench or pretty much anywhere in the wee hours of the morning.  Some of my friends told me that on Sunday mornings they make a game out of counting the number of pukes they find walking down the street.  I imagine the count could get quite high.  My favorite scene to watch is the group of five or six men aged 40-60 all in suits stumbling down the road, leaning on each other for support and/or carrying each other to keep from toppling over.  Often their efforts are in vain.  

I find that expats in Korea also love soju.  At least for about the first month they are here.  A little over a dollar a bottle, soju is a very cheap way to get absolutely sloshed.  I think I speak for many expats when I say that we quickly slow down on the soju drinking after our first worst-hangover-ever.  Some of us don't learn from our mistakes and have our second and third worst-hangovers-ever.  When in Korea.

This photo reminds me of the time the head teacher at my school came into work with a huge gash on his forehead.  Even though my coteachers and I were alone in the classroom they whispered to me that they knew he got really drunk the night before and they speculated that he fell down the stairs.  I don't know if the story was ever confirmed to be true but I think that's what the common notion was amongst the teachers.  The head teacher must have gone to see the doctor that first day because the second day he came to school with a bandage over his wound.  Stitches?  I don't know.  But I do know that he should have bought the soju with the free band-aid.