The Midnight Gimbap Ajumma

Last week we went post-bar to U & Me Chinese restaurant in Chinatown. I'd been there before for daytime dim sum, but never at 3am. U & Me is a restaurant that has been dinged with numerous healthy violations over the years but still manages to stay in business. And business was good Saturday night-- the place was full of loud people warding off a Sunday morning hangover with fried noodles and ginger beef. A middle-aged Chinese lady was our server. At first I thought that this nice woman shouldn't be putting up with hungry louts when she could be sleeping. Then I thought of the money the restaurant was raking in and didn't feel bad. Drunk people order enthusiastically and tip well.

This lady put me in mind of another I encountered in Korea. English teachers sated their 3-am hunger at a place called Gimbap Chon-guk, a 24-hour "snack" restaurant near the foreigner bar in downtown Gwangju. You could get spicy kimchi soups and tuna gimbap and rice bowls here for cheap. I believe every after-hours foray I made into this place was attended by the presence of the famous Midnight Gimbap Ajumma. She was a short haired lady, around forty, heavy white face make-up, and a mean countenance. This ajumma took no shit from the drunken waygooks who interrupted her work shift. She'd verbal abuse the men in Korean; however, its possible that this abuse was her way of flirting. She was quite taken with our friend Mike, his blond hair and big blue eyes. She kept coming over to look at him and comment under her breath. After time she might accord to her regulars some grudging respect, especially to those who could speak some Korean.