The Tall Tales of Duke Moon, Korean Legend Part I

Warning: unless you are Michael Vick the pictures below may sicken you.

You know all those jokes about Asian restaurants serving dog instead of chicken? Turns out they are true… except more disturbingly. And I know this thanks to Duke Moon.

Matt and I were planning on going to Technomart (kind of like the Cheetah Club to Yongsan’s Clermont Lounge) to get him an overpriced used cell phone. Before I got to the station, as fate would have it, I ran into Brian. He wanted to go as well, but had to change (because he’s on the Korean National Ultimate Frisbee team, which is beyond badass).

So Matt and I waited and started playing some gin as Brian was taking an uncharacteristically long time to meet us down in the station. After two trains passed, I was starting to get antsy. But then an old, 5′2″ Korean guy carrying behind him a rolling suitcase came up to us and said, “Poh-kah heheHEHEhehehe…ahhh…”

In case you were wondering, none of those “hes” were gratuitous. This guy literally had the longest and creepiest laugh possible using only a single breath (kind of a useless superpower, but one nonetheless). So naturally, Matt and I wrote him off as some lunatic bum trying to sell us shoe soles.

The man, undeterred by our attempts to ignore him, said again “Poh – kah.” Matt said, “Oh, ha, no it’s actually gin.” He replied, “Yes, but I see cards and that’s the only word I know heheHEHEhehehe…ahhh…” Surprised that he could put together a complete English sentence, we both realized there was more to this guy than we originally thought.

Brian began walking up to us as the man made an offer that would change our lives forever: “How would you like me to take you to country market and drink traditional Korean rice drink?”

We thought about it for a little while and then we were like, ah, we can make it to Technomart a little late. So we followed the man onto the subway and struck up a conversation with him.

“My name is Moon. Duke Moon.” (What the hell kind of fortunate bastard gets to be named Duke Moon? Forget Trent Steel or Max Power, fuck it let’s just name our son “Big Dick.”) Well, it turns out that Big Dick Duke Moon was actually from North Korea, came over a decade before the war with his family. He also shoots laser beams out of his eyes.

Duke Moon is not classified as matter exactly, because he is everywhere and nowhere all at once. His ping pong paddle is magic. He DIDN’T kill JFK. He DID take us to the market.

The Moran Country Market is exactly the kind of experience I was expecting when I came to Korea; hick backwater farmers from the country selling fresh vegetables and delicious-looking cuts of meat. The storefronts were closed down and replaced by impromptu tents, or just people who literally set up camp and sold their vegetables from the floor (mmm… groundtato). And none of them wanted me to take pictures, likely because they had neither a business license nor proper storage of their foodstuffs.

Part II

~ by David Ogles on August 28, 2007.