A Pretty Sunday

A couple months ago my girlfriends and I took a trip to Las Vegas to celebrate Stephanie, my sista from another mista’s birthday. When it comes to Vegas, you either love it or you hate it. I fall into the latter category, although I never remember that until the morning I’m supposed to leave. Not only do I usually leave with a feeling of “get me the eff out of this town,” but everything in Vegas seems to cost an exorbitant amount of money, and everyone in Vegas that comes out of their own free will is there to either gamble, get smashed or get laid. Translation: everyone acts like a douche when they’re in Vegas. I’ll even admit to acting like douche when I’m in Vegas. It’s just something in the water. Oh, it’s probably the fact that there’s vodka in it.

Me, being a jelly douche.

So when I first met this guy at Moon that Saturday night/early Sunday morning I immediately classified him as such. He was at least 7 feet tall, black, wearing a long-sleeved Ed Hardy shirt and surrounded by a posse of equally arrogant-looking guys. As I was waiting for my girlfriend by the bar, he called me over. I obliged, thinking I could possibly get a free drink out of this (I told you I was a douche in Vegas). We started to talk, and he asked me what ethnicity I was. I said, “I’m half-Korean and…” and before I could say what the other half was, he interrupted me.

“I LOVE KOREANS. I knew you were Korean. I love Koreans.” His voice was booming, even in a loud Vegas nightclub.

I was a little stunned, a little annoyed, a little confused. He must have yellow fever. But he continued, explaining that he lived in Korea for two years and has a lot of Korean friends, and then he spit out a few phrases in Korean, to which I shrugged my shoulders because I don’t know much more than “hello” and “how much is this?” in Korean. After a little more talk about his Korea life, he busted out his camera and showed me photos of him and his Korean friends. Not just women, but men, old people and children too. Like a stamp collection. “See? See?” as he pointed out each Korean in each photo, as if I couldn’t tell which one they were out of the Asian person and the 7 ft tall black person on the LCD screen.

Kind of bored, but kind of fascinated at how he was so enthused about this topic, I felt the way an adult feels when a kindergartner shows them their pokemon collection. He looked at me as I nodded. “You’re SO CUTE!” he almost yelled at me, and scrunched his nose. “Thanks?” I said back. What does one say to a huge man in a nightclub that is looking at me more like he wanted to make a stuffed animal out of me than he wanted to get my number?

Then, he did it. He pinched my cheek. “You’re soooooo cute!” He scrunched his nose up again. His hands were so big that it hurt a little, but I was more bewildered than angry. He asked if we could take a picture together. Normally I would probably deny this proposal, but since this was such a “unique” situation, I thought what the hell, and obliged. His friend took the photo, and I put on a smile as he wrapped his gigantor arm around my shoulder. “Koreans love me,” he said. “And I love Koreans!”

“Cool,” I said. “I’m gonna go find my friends now.” My go-to escape line in any club situation. I walked off and told my girlfriends that I had the weirdest run-in with a black Andre the Giant and he loves Koreans. DeAndre the Giant, if you will. We all laughed, and I thought that was the last of it.

A little while later, when I’m good and inebriated, a European guy was hassling me to get a drink with him. This is a prejudgment, but European guys always sound pretty hot in normal conversation, but really douchey when they are hitting on you. But that’s an issue for a whole separate blog entry. Anyways, the Eurobag is grabbing my arms, pulling me towards the bar against my will, when DeAndre stepped in, plucked me out of Eurobag’s clutches with his thumb and forefinger like a stray eyelash. “You alright?” he asked. I nodded, and thanked him. He gave me a thumbs up, and let me on my way. Didn’t hit on me, ask for my number, try and grab me inappropriately (aside from the cheek-pinching), nothing.

So what did I learn on this Vegas trip? Some people really love Koreans. So much that they want to take them home and put them on a shelf like a dunny collection. I wonder if my picture is thumb tacked next to a million other Koreans’ pictures and a big Korean flag on a humongous cork board somewhere.

Korea!!!