Now That's A Long Night.
It is not a joke. 소주 is the devil.
Incase you don't know, 소주 (Soju) tends to be the drink of choice for most Koreans. There is a very small selection of beer available, and most of it is of poor quality. Soju, instead, is an extremely cheap version of traditional rice wine. These days, though, some companies have started a trend of substituting the rice for other starches like potato, wheat, barley, even sweet potato. Which just enforces the fact that with soju, you never know what you're going to get. Now the alcohol content is high, but not ridiculous -- 20 to 45% depending on the manufacturer. The problem is that the processing of the soju adds sugar to the contents, and that baby gives you a mean hangover the next day. Soju has given me, by far, the worst hangover I've had ever. And I've had some mean wine mornings. You can add it with beer, to create soemaek (a handy-dandy mix of the two words soju and maekju, which is Korean for beer). That makes it better -- but only by a little bit. You can also have a 폭탄주 (Poktanju) which translates literally to "Bomb Drink", where you drop a shot of soju into the glass of beer and drink it as fast as you can (ONE SHOT, ONE SHOT! as they love to say...) Needless to say, it only costs 1,200 won (oh the KRW), which is equivalent to about $1.00. Makes it incredibly difficult to say no to Soju when you're on a budget.
This leads into an important comment that must be made about Korean society.
One of the most shocking things that I have come across on a daily basis since living in Korea are blackouts. And I don't mean me blacking out. I mean men of all ages -- and sometimes women, but usually men -- passing out in the middle of the street, on top of tables, inside coffee shops, next to subways. Without a doubt, living in Seoul you will see more than 100 business men passed out somewhere that is definitely nowhere near their home. It's useless to try and get them in a cab, as they won't be able to give the taxi driver their address and furthermore, the taxidriver won't be able to haul them out when they get to the apartment. Even more furtile is to try and get them to sit up, or lie in a more comfortable clean place. Most times they're 100 pounds heavier than you and what's worse, sometimes if you wake the sleeping giant, they get PISSED. So just leave it...really. Most of these guys are just completely drunk from a Soju binge with the businessmen. It's common for them to go out and have dinner together with their buddies after work and just casually go from drinking a beer to drowning in the clear devil that is known as Soju. It's tradition, and I don't see it ending anytime soon. Anytime I go out with my Korean friends, they always get a bit flustered when I tell them I'm more into the beer -- until I finally give in, take a shot, and start riding downhill.
I'm sharing with this you not to scare you -- really, on the whole, they're completely harmless. It's just one of the most shocking things I've surprisingly become completely used to in the past year and a half of living in Korea.
Check it out. There is even a website for this. Yikes. Please be warned there are a few graphic photos in here so if you have a queasy stomach at all, I advise you not to look.
http://blackoutkorea.com/
