Don't Tell Mama

A few weekends ago I was drinking at my favourite neighbourhood hangout, Harlem Beer Market.

Harlem is a very cool, loft-style looking place with painted pipes and exposed bricks. It's a self-serve beer market where clear-glass fridges face outwards to reveal beers from around the world beckoning your palate. You open the fridge, help yourself and pay at a cash register. Here, a bottle of Moosehead is 3,300 won (Today's rate: $4.15 Cdn).

And that's one of the more expensive beers in the place.

My favourite, Cafri, a Korean beer that tastes a lot like Corona, is 1,500 won per bottle ($1.89 Cdn).

So I was at Harlem Beer Market with the infamous Kami, who has since recovered from the speaker stalactite that came crashing down on him on New Year's. We were joined by a couple of Kami's korean friends. After many beers, the guys wanted to hit a club, so we went on a 15 minute walk through the labyrinth of streets that traverse my neighbourhood and came upon a neon spectacle. Large, blinking korean characters were above a vast double doorway coaxing us in.

Kami leans over and with an index finger raised to his lips, he whispers, "Shhhh. Don't tell Mama." which causes me to laugh.

We stand there in front of the doorway for a moment and I ask, "Kami - what's the name of this club?"

"What the $^&$#!" he says, "I just TOLD you. It's 'Don't Tell Mama'!"

"Oh..." I said and we proceeded in.

After descending down a very large spiral staircase, we were at the opening of what was one of the largest clubs I've seen. It was huge. Ridiculously huge. Rows and rows of tables and benches towards the front, a very large dance floor at the back, and behind it was a raised broadway stage. We sat down at one of the booths and the waiter came over and took our orders. After he brought food and beer...he brought women.

Seriously. He brought women.

I watched as the waiter went to a booth full of girls and led them by hand to our table. They weren't working girls. They were just other club-goers. The girls took up book-end spots around us and we started talking to them. They stayed for a few minutes, drank some of our beer, and then scurried off to the dance floor. No sooner had they left, the waiter sprung into action, went to another table of unsuspecting girls, and dragged them over to us.

I say "drag" because the girls put on a show of reluctance while the waiter grips their elbow ever so softly.

This was going on all around the bar. Squadrons of waiters were running around like worker bees escorting female club-goers to tables with males.

After talking to Kami, I got the low-down: Korean culture is very conservative. So much so, that guys and girls have a hard time meeting each other. The people here need a meeting/dating catalyst and this club is it: Guys come here knowing that females are going to be brought to their tables, and the females go knowing that they are going to be dragged from table to table. The females put on a show, feigning like they don't want to be led away.

I said to Kami, "They wouldn't come here if they truly didn't want to be led to other tables and set up with guys. They would've gone to a regular dance club, so their 10-second protest is all an act, right?"

"Now you're thinking like a Korean," Kami said and clinged his glass against mine.

Don't Tell Mama gets better. They occasionally have contests. One such contest, at 4am when everyone has liquid courage in them, is one-thousand dollars to the girl who takes off the most amount of clothes on stage. Again, because of the conservative culture, a few girls get on stage and take off a boot or a shoe to start. It's very slow...painfully slow, with constant coaxing by the dee-jay to get the girls to reveal more while the girls hold up one hand, cupping their mouths and do that typical childish, embarrassed giggle.

This contest takes forever.

In Canada, this would be a speed contest! $1000 bucks?!? Hell, I got female friends who would shed their clothing faster than the dee-jay could announce the rules!

So that's Don't Tell Your Mama. A den of dating and debauchery in the eyes of the locals here. But back in Canada, this is any night at the Rose and Crown with my friend Andrea, minus the thousand bucks.

Dan