Ville Memories: Why I Don't Eat Chicken On A Stick
The Marmot has a posting about Chinese recycling used chopsticks without sanitizing them and then reselling them. Just to demonstrate that this phenomenon isn’t just limited to China let me tell you about an experience I had in Korea. Early in my first tour to Korea I liked to buy chicken on a stick in the TDC Ville. An old, crusty NCO saw me one time eating a chicken on a stick and pulled me aside and told me not to eat chicken on a stick. I asked him why and he told me to link up with him after curfew and he would show me why.
Before 2001 there was a limited number of Warrior Passes that allowed 2nd Infantry Division soldiers to stay out after curfew which I just happened to have one. So I linked up with this NCO after curfew and after curfew the ville was mostly dead with just a few GIs with Warrior Passes walking around. We stood back and watched the scene and then the NCO pointed out a woman who was walking up the ville road and picking up the sticks that GIs had thrown on the ground. We continued to watch her and as she got closer I could make out that she was the woman who operated the chicken on a stick shack. She took the sticks and brought them into her little shack. The NCO then told me that she reuses the sticks thrown on the ground to serve to GIs the next day. I have never ate foods served on sticks in Korea after that night.
Also there is a reason why I don’t drink hard liquor especially with ice in the ville either, which I’m sure some of you ville veterans can guess why.
[…] Ville Memories: Why I Don’t Eat Chicken On A Stick at ROK Drop on August 22, 2007 at 4:43 […]
I caught the sneaky bastards chopping up magpies for "chicken" cheese ramyon after curfew once.
I still eat the Hell out of some chicken cheese ramyon, though. One of the only two edible Korean foods.
Thanks for the tip. I'll be reviewing my shot record tomorrow.
Ahh, the Ville. Too many stories. I was a Ville Rat at AnJung-ri in the 80s and early 90s. I remember this one crusty NCO trying to PCS, but his orders were AWOL. His CO told him to bring him A copy of his orders as soon as they arrived. That night he goes down range, has a couple and then goes to get some yacky man-do. Back on camp and walking to his quarters, he looks at the bag of man-do and see's that the bag is composed of copies of his orders. Next day, the CO has a bag of man-do sitting on his desk. I thought that was special.
Then the Korean girl losing money at the slots. She was given the money by my COs brother, also a CO. Having that little bit of info was very helpful in expediteing some request.
Ahh, the bad ole days. Sometimes I miss them.
So a guy walks into the bar and says, "I can't believe this siht. This is way fukced up."
He holds out his yaki man-do bag fabricated from some kind of Osan printout.
I took a quick look and saw a name and a social security number.
"Cool, dude," I said. "Let me write that down and we can get a credit card. I want one of those five thousand dollar Live Dolls. I'm gonna dress her as Little Bo Peep and surround her in my living room with a flock of blow-up sheep. What are you gonna order?"
He looked at me and shook his head. "No, man. You don't understand. That's ME!"
"Wow. That IS fukced up. Does this mean I'm not going to get the sheep?"
True story.
J!
About 5 years ago I was in the bush of Africa on business. After about 2 weeks there I got an extreme urge for chocolate. I asked my African colleague if there was any chocolate available. About a 4 hour drive later we came across this small shop that sold mainly European and American products. As I was taking my $3 Mounds bar to the shopkeeper for payment, I knocked over a $15 jar of grape jelly. I apologized and offered to pay for it. The shopkeeper refused my offer to pay for it. His wife carefully put the jelly into another jar and put it back on the counter.
i always assumed that they reuse kimchee and other side dishes that are left after a meal as well
its all mass stored in large containers so once they clean up they take the left overs and dump them back in
GI,
You have me thinking if there was another motive for the Lotte hotel to keep feeding me salisbury steak during my stay there in 1989. LOL.
Cheers,
Bill
does anyone know if the russian juicy girls have returned to TDC? i keep hearing that
jb,
I did not see any when I visited recently but I did not stop by all the clubs in the ville either.
Reminds me of a job I had when I was 15 at an Italian restaurant, run by a third generation immigrant (500 lbs) and his sister (~700 lbs).
Salad and bread went with every meal. After the meal we were told to put the leftover bread into some cardboard boxes in the corner of the kitchen.
Every week (Tuesday, I think) they would make the meatballs. If you know about making meatballs, you can guess where the dried bread went.
Uhhh…
The bread… hmmm…
The 500 pound, third generation immigrant and his 700 pound sister were soaking it in beef tallow and eating it with a side of pork lard?
…while the meatballs were made of the cardboard boxes?
Oh, wait… they were Italian, not Chinese.
Nevermind.
I've always wondered about that kimchee thing. But for some reason I don't care, and I still eat it everyday anyways. I just reassure myself and my coworkers with "that's why we have immune systems." 🙂