Sweet Sweet Stache

We went away to Gangwon Province during the long weekend with a few friends, did some hiking, drinking, eating, etc. We were there for three days, and I neglected to bring my razor with me, so I had a little bit of a beard once we came back.  Nothing special, but I thought what the hell, I'll let it grow for a little while.

Korean's in general have very little hair on their bodies, and I went to school with what I thought was mostly just some good stubble. Certainly nothing to write home about, but everyone at the school thought it was great.  All the people were saying I looked pretty tough, definitely not something I hear often.  So, I decided to leave it and let it grow for awhile.  After a few more days, it was really filling in, and I was starting to enjoy having it.  It actually became a way to teach kids some new words, like beard, goatee, sideburns, and mustache.  I was achieving a lot more then I had expected, and was feeling pretty good about it all.

Things were going swell until lunchtime on Thursday.  Right in the middle of the meal, one of my co-teachers pipes up and asks "When will you shave your beard?" I really had no beard timeline, but I didn't shaving it right away, so I said maybe this weekend, maybe next weekend, not sure.  "Well, the principal doesn't like it?" I didn't really know what to say, but knew this was likely the end of my "looking tough" days.  I eat lunch with about 8 women, and most of them know no English.  One of them asked what we were talking about, and after an explaination, she looked really upset.  I'm told that she thinks my beard looks really good, and many of the women tell me not to shave it.  I was in quite a dilemma.  I can keep all these older women happy and keep the beard or I can shave it and keep my principal happy.  Definitely a huge decision, and not one I was prepared to make at that point.  I went and sat in my office for a while after lunch and really thought about the decision at hand. What should I do?

Then, as if it was a sign by god, a chubby little 3rd grader came in to try and talk to me.  After a quick hello, he makes a motion with his hand rubbing his face.  He loves my beard! To double check, I point to my beard and give him the thumbs up.  Did he like it? Not quite.  He sticks out his tongue, says Yucky (a word I just taught the kids) and gives a shaving motion.  Just like that, my problem was solved. If this little fella didn't like my beard, there was no way I could continue to walk the halls of my school with it.  Just so it wouldn't seem like I was caving in right away to my principal, I decided to wait until the weekend to shave it.

We decided to go and watch some horse racing on Saturday, and I gave myself a nice shave for it.  Just to look nice and cool for the races, I decided to give myself a nice stache.  My first one ever.  I thought it was great, but oddly enough, Kristin didn't feel the same way.  Kristin, Richard and I all went to the races, and each of us actually won once. Oddly enough, the race track may be the only place in Korea where you can't buy beer.

There it is in all its glory.

The day after the races, I actually ran into my vice-principal while I was getting groceries for Thanksgiving Dinner (which was delicious, thank you Kristin) with the stache and she looked pretty surprised to see me.  She was actually speechless.  I'm not sure if she was speechless because she thought it was that beautiful or because she can hardly speak English.  Either way, she didn't say much.  I knew she would come to school and tell the principal about the stache.  If he didn't like the beard, there was no way he'd like this, so I shaved it off Sunday night and I'm back to smooth skin.