Martoons

Cast of characters

Fred

Mrs Park

Mrs Kim

*

“How may I help you ladies?” said Fred.  ”I’ve got all the time in the world.”    

Park reached into her purse, explaining, “We brought you a gift.”

She had a fancy little shopping bag from one of the upscale department stores, and handed it over.

He peeked inside and his eyes lit up.

It was one of those spontaneous cultural moments that arise from time to time for a foreigner in a strange land.

* What could the gift be? *

“A cassette tape of traditional Korean drumming! Sweet!”

He swiftly removed the item from the bag and was now perked right up. “Let’s play this – right now!”

A cassette player was sitting nearby and on went the tape.

There was also a traditional Korean drum sitting on a filing cabinet, which no one ever seemed to use.

Fred had seen it up there before and even taken a few whacks on it when no one was around. He loved its sound.

Now he brought it down and Kim started giving him a lesson.

She neatly sat down on the clean floor, as the drum has to be placed in the drummer’s lap.

Fred sat down beside her as she showed him how to handle the two differently-shaped drum sticks – one a mallet and the other, which looked like an elongated shoe horn.

Its contact end was tapered for a ‘thwacking’ sound.

Dong-dong-tack’-oong-tah.

Dong-dong-tack’-oong-tah.

“I am a member of traditional drum club,” Kim said, adding some intensity to her beating.

Her arms and upper body started to undulate rhythmically, while she kept her head and neck still and her facial expression stoic.

Dong-dong-tack’-oong-tah.

The atmosphere in the office intensified.

“Farmer music!” Fred exclaimed.

Presently, the staff room floor became a rice paddy. Something stirred deep inside Fred.

This reminded him of a First Nation’s pow-wow he’d attended once in northern Canada.

He felt the connectedness of distant societies and started to undulate.

“All we need is some soju!” 

“Oh!” Park exclaimed and dug into her purse again.

“My husband and I went traveling this past weekend to Andong – a little town on Korea’s east coast. It is famous for soju.”

Out of her purse came a crystal clean green bottle of alcohol. Fred looked at it appreciatively and perused the label.

“An-dong So-ju,” he read out loud as his forefinger jumped along each syllable of the product’s name on the label.

He felt like a school kid learning to read.

Then, much to the shock and delight of the housewives, he gripped the bottle and twisted the golden metal cap off.

“Sorry – no soju glasses here.”

Park and Kim gasped as he took a glug right out of the bottle, being careful not to touch his lips to the rim as students had showed him. “Cheers!”

His face contorted; a good five seconds passed and then he regained control of his facial muscles. “Keep beating that drum Mrs Kim.”

Dong-dong-tack-oong-tah!

“Come on Mrs Park let’s dance!” Twirling arm-in-arm, Fred cracked an ear-to-ear smile.

As he nimbly stomped around the cramped little office, a new day was getting off to a roaring start.

And, amidst the frenzied flurry of drumming accompanied by Fred’s whooping, his pesky caffeine craving had vanished.

He was getting this day under control.

* Will his day now stay under control? *

*

Tomorrow: Miss No has a hard time believing what she is seeing.