Today I met with our distributor here, went for Japanese food with him, went back to my room to write e-mails and reports, and decided I’d go see the show “Jump” tonight.  Now I think the show’s flash player killed my browser last time, so let me save this before I go copy the link for you.  (See, I can learn from past heartache!) 

It didn’t kill my browser.  You can click on it without worries. 

I walked there from the hotel and got there so quickly I had to wait for the ticket booth to open.  When it opened and I got to the counter, the seller asked if I’d reserved a seat.  Uh-oh, I thought, it’s sold out.  I can’t say my heart sunk too far, because I’d passed a movie theater on the way and almost given in to the temptation of watching the Bourne Supremacy dubbed in Korean.  But apparently there was just one seat left, P17.  It sounds like what it was.  No, not a hip-hop artist or a secret governmental organisation.  It was an aisle seat in the penultimate row. 

There was still time to kill until the show.  Following my nether instincts, I walked toward where Burger King was on the map, but I caught myself and stepped into Caffé Pascucci on the way, where I got a bulgogi panini and, in a judgment lapse, a raspberry ice tea.  Without a book on me, I leafed through a Korean translation of MOTOR TREND.  A Giugiaro looks the same in any language – slick and out of any thinking person’s reach.  The combination of bulgogi, cheese, and bread was worth the wait and makes me want to find a recipe for bulgogi to try other combinations. 

I got an ice cream on the way out and trolled around town, looking for a bookstore, not realising I’d probably be kicked out with ice cream in my hand.  I wanted to see if I could find a copy of Archiworld.  Instead, I found countless restaurants that would have been more interesting, but you can’t regret bulgogi.  I walked along the giant double row of piano keys to the elevated granite keyboard, which had two children jumping from key to key, and passed on to the Cheonggyecheon creek, which has been remade as a walking course.  It had looked pleasant when I first passed on my way to the theatre, but now the lights were one and I, for one, would have preferred the stepping stones not to have inlaid blue LEDs.  Blue LEDs somehow fail to emanate that natural look the designers seemed to have been striving for. 

Back at the theatre I was thirsty and still early, so I drank ice tea in the Coffee bean and tea house.  They charged 50 won extra for the cup, which they refunded upon return, so now I have two 50-won coins to give away. 

I walked downstairs to the theatre and took my seat way in the back.  I heard Japanese and Korean in the hall, Japanese next to me, and looked around.  I couldn’t spot another Caucasian in the audience.  All the more authentic an experience, I figured. 

Jump doesn’t have a lot of plot.  Think of a series of goofy Jackie Chan martial arts comedy routines strung together by some bare-bones story about a family preparing for a guest, who turns out to be the grandfather’s pick for the daughter’s husband, and a break-in that pits the family against two burglars.  For the same reason, there’s no character development to speak of – the characters barely talk, and instead let their smooth moves speak for themselves.  And they manage to get the audience roaring with laughter at their highly acrobatic and well-timed slapstick goofiness. 

After the initial part of the show, the grandfather stepped into the audience and after a few steps up the aisle his eyes locked onto me.  So that’s what a deer in the headlights feels like.  Oh well, being singled out in Asia is almost routine for me, so I stood up when he asked me to and told him I was from Switzerland and bowed a little.  Then he told me to come out into the aisle and defend myself from his fan.  He showed me how.  So when he moved toward me, I held up my left forearm to ward off the blow that didn’t come.  Then he told me to follow him on stage. 

Of course I followed.  Not because I love the stage, but because he asked me and I couldn’t say no.  I didn’t really think about stage fright or what to do, and once up there I realized that stage fright is pointless because when you’re in the limelight, you can hardly even see the audience.  That made it easy to focus on the actors.  Besides, the grandfather guy was telling me what to do.  I had to imitate the drunk uncle character’s moves.  The first was some fighting kick.  I imitated, swaying after landing my kicking foot.  Trying something like that shows you how much skill goes into their performance.  Next he followed up a forward somersault with a backward somersault into a handstand.  Right.  I mastered the forward somersault.  I managed a graceless backward somersault.  I didn’t even attempt the handstand.  Even when we practiced those in middle school I never managed one, so out of a backward somersault?  But thinking back, maybe I should have tried.  It might have added to the comic momentum to see the big guy flop on his face, and the stage was springy enough for it not to hurt. 

Then the father character came to pat us down before the fight.  I didn’t understand that he was going to pat me down, too, so I faced the uncle guy and only on the grandfather’s direction stood with my arms spread like at the airport for the father to pat me down.  A quicker mind would have taken off his belt, watch, and wallet, or maybe initially refused the pat-down on grounds of pride, but I was not in my character, whatever it was.  But maybe that was the point…  The father patted me down, and I turned to face the uncle again, but he was looking at the father.  The father was carrying an axe, and in rapid sequence the other characters behind me “pulled out” a whole arsenal from my clothes – sword, chain, stick – dropped them in the middle of the stage and fled to the other side.  I looked around with a grin and moved toward the weapons.  They yelped and shrank back.  I moved another step – they yelped and shrank back again.  I tried to be like one of them and picked up the sword in a swift movement, then stood clueless in what I hope was at least a moderately menacing pose brandishing a sword with a floppy blade.  A quicker mind might have repeated the move and yelp routine, or brandished his chapstick, but even more clueless as to what to do next, I just put the sword back down.  I’m not even quick enough for esprit d’escalier, mine’s an esprit de chez soi…  I don’t really remember what happened between then and the grandfather declaring me the winner and the uncle guy giving me a glossy “Jump” program book and beckoning me to stand in the middle of the stage.  I think people applauded, but I only remember walking back up the aisle with a silly grin and the three people sitting next to me applauding for me as I sat down again. 

Drunk uncle picked a cute Korean girl next, who was spared the patting down routine only because the mother anticipated the father’s intentions and challenged the Korean girl to a slow-motion fight which ended with her punching the mother K.O.  That punch, as all other punches and moves, came with the typical over-the-top sound effects, which in retrospect makes me think the sound guys really also ought to take a bow at the end.  I was well entertained and by the end my cheeks hurt from laughing, but next time some guy says there’s only one seat left and it’s an aisle seat I’ll slit my eyes, wrinkle my nose, growl, give him a mean stare and buy the ticket anyway.  I don’t mind being the fall guy if it makes people laugh. 

Anyway, go see the show, and choose your seat wisely.  I hope they tour Switzerland sometime! 

What also struck me as funny in a much more low-key way was that at the end of the show the guy next to me and I conversed in Japanese about how cool the show was and whether I was in on the stunt without him batting an eye.  It was pleasant in two ways: first, to be able to talk with someone at all, and second, to be able to talk with someone in Japanese without him making a big deal of it.