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02. The language of fate!
From the next day, I woke up every day, bought a newspaper, and tried to focus on the advertisements while looking for something I could do properly, but in reality, there was nothing I could do. However, in the midst of all that, there was an advertisement that appeared in the newspaper every day, and the phrase “Guaranteed employment!” caught my eye. It was none other than the advertisement for a cocktail academy. I was in despair because I couldn’t see any hope, so I thought, “Okay! Let’s learn that and get a job!” and saved up my money to pay for the academy.
I couldn’t even say, “I have money!”! Even if I spent all I had, it wasn’t enough, so I didn’t spend a single penny of my allowance and just saved it, wanting to learn something and use it to motivate myself to escape life. Maybe that’s why I got used to saving without spending, and I think I could stop spending it whenever I made up my mind. Even with the money I saved, if there was a place where it was needed, I really boldly invested it? I think that’s when I developed that determination. So I invested all the money I had saved into the Samwon Cocktail Academy in Noryangjin and registered. So I was able to study hard there for the next three months? and I was so happy that I could do something and that it was fun and happy and that I could have more things to do in the future. So I really studied hard at the academy.
And I memorized all the names of the alcohols, how to shake and mix them to make cocktails, and various formulas, and I studied really hard. In addition, I read a lot of books to learn about the stories related to alcohol that I could tell customers while they were drinking, and also about politics, economy, and society, and even about people living in the world. I read a lot, learned, and memorized a lot of information, following the cocktail academy teacher’s teachings? It was really a life of perseverance to survive in the world.
After studying for three months like that, I was able to obtain a certificate from the Cocktail Association. And on the last day, Saturday, as promised in the newspaper advertisement, the cocktail academy teacher took me somewhere to help me find a job, and I followed him diligently. The place the teacher went to was Gwanghwamun Village, a famous Western restaurant at the time in Gwanghwamun. After a brief interview with the teacher, I was fortunate enough to hear the manager’s permission to start work tomorrow and to come to work tomorrow morning. As I returned home, my steps were light with joy at the thought that I had something to do. The next morning was Sunday. I called the pastor early in the morning and explained that I couldn’t go to church because I had to go to work for the first time today. I got ready for work in my suit and left the house to catch the bus. As I was walking toward the bus stop, the pastor’s wife came up to me and blocked my way with both hands outstretched, saying, “You can’t go! It’s Sunday. Where are you going on Sunday?” It was a really difficult situation. So I had no choice but to apologize to the pastor’s wife. Madam! Still, I have to go to work for the first time. And then I shook off my wife’s hand and went to work, not knowing how much my heart ached.
After working at the restaurant for a week, I learned a few things. I worked at the restaurant from 10 in the morning to 10 or 11 in the evening, and I felt comfortable with the thought that I was doing something, so I started my day by going to work in the morning, cleaning, and eating breakfast together. Then, I ended up eating three meals a day at the restaurant, and the chef put the meat that he prepared in Western dishes into the soup that the employees would eat, so although it wasn’t a set meal, I ended up eating meat every day. Also, because I had work, I felt comfortable and ate well, so my face became plump and I looked like a pretty boy.
The main job I did while working there was to serve various drinks. When I first got to work in the morning, I would first prepare coffee, and now I would prepare orange juice, and now there is cube ice, but back then, I had to break large blocks of ice into small cubes with an awl and put them in the glasses of various drinks. So it was common to hold a large block of ice in my left hand, hold the awl short with my right hand, and use the tip of the awl to break the ice in my left hand, and then prick my left palm here and there.
Of all the drinks, the most important one was the cocktail drink. A cocktail is a drink made by pouring 1 ounce of 12 or 24 ounces of liquor into a shaker using a measuring cup, adding various other ingredients or seasonings, mixing it appropriately in various ways, pouring it into a cup, decorating it, and serving it to the customer.
Therefore, if 12 glasses of small bottles or 24 glasses of large bottles are sold, the stock that was brought in will run out, so they have to buy more (the owner usually buys new ones), but after a certain period of time, the bartender's hands get faster, and even though 1 ounce was not poured, some alcohol will be left over as they pour it into the shaker. And when that accumulates, later on, there will be one small or one large bottle of liquor left, but when you sell the corresponding number of glasses, there will be no stock in the ledger. The previous managers probably didn't show it even if they thought about it, so they probably drank it with other waiters after work, so they made sure that the stock ledger and the number of cocktails sold matched exactly, and if there was a shortage in the ledger, they asked for an order and bought it. But when the boss saw that I had sold the same number of glasses since I came in, but there was still inventory left, he knew that there would be more inventory left over, and even so, when it was time for my paycheck, he would give me an unplanned bonus because I didn’t make a personalization of the leftovers. At the time, my salary was 60,000 won, but he told me not to tell my other waiter friends and gave me an extra 10,000 won.
The employees would take turns resting during the week, and since there were a lot of customers on the weekends, everyone would work on Saturdays and Sundays. One day, I asked the boss to tell me something, and he asked what I was talking about. He said that I had a lot of work to do on Sundays, such as going to church to teach Sunday school and singing in the choir, so I wanted to rest on Sundays, which was ridiculous from the perspective of the restaurant or the boss. However, the boss said,
“Then you can rest on Sundays.”
So from then on, I rested on Sundays and finally returned to work at the church. As a result, other waiters started to complain to me, saying, “Why are you the only one resting on Sundays? If you rest on weekdays, your friends won’t be able to meet you because you’ll be working, so let’s all take turns resting so that we can all rest fairly!” I told them to understand that while they could rest for a day, I would rather go to church on Sundays and work harder than I would here, but they refused and eventually threatened to quit. So I realized that I didn’t need to harm the boss, and that it wasn’t easy to balance my religious life and social life, so I made a vow to God in high school, and now I think it’s time for me to go back to that path, so I told the pastor about it. He said that I should study theology, and he even paid my first tuition. After deciding on my career path, I told the owner that I would quit the restaurant. He asked why, but I couldn’t say anything else, and I said that I would quit to study theology. The owner encouraged me to study hard, and I quit the restaurant. And then, after about 10 years, I was working as a pastor candidate and an assistant pastor in charge of educating students at a church in Gangnam. Then, I had some work to do after a long time, and I happened to pass by Gwanghwamun Village, the restaurant where I used to work. Suddenly, I remembered the old days when I worked there, and I thought that if the owner who treated me so well still runs the restaurant, I should at least say hello. So, I went up to the second floor of Gwanghwamun Village after a long time. I carefully opened the door and went inside. The appearance of the restaurant had not changed much from before. At around 3pm, there were no customers inside, but a person who looked like a manager was busy sweeping the floor and cleaning, and then he looked at me with a curious look, wondering why I was a customer at this hour. So I told him that I came to see the boss, and he said that he was the boss here. So I said,
“Oh! I guess the boss has changed.”
and he said that he took over the place two months ago. Then he asked me what was going on, and I said that I used to work here, but I was passing by after a long time, and if the boss was still running it, I wanted to say hello. The manager said to me,
“You didn’t know?”
He asked back. I stared at him as if I didn’t know anything, and he said that the previous owner had been running the restaurant until last month, but a couple months ago, he handed it over to me, and he became a pastor and opened a restaurant on the second floor of a seolleongtang restaurant in Sinsa-dong, Gangnam. I was shocked. That owner became a pastor? I remember that owner drank a lot and knew a lot of celebrities, so famous celebrities would sometimes visit the restaurant. However, I remember that owner’s wife was very religious, so the owner would take care of her. So what on earth had happened during that time that owner became a pastor? Furthermore, that seolleongtang restaurant was about 200 meters away from the church where I was a pastor, so when the church held a special dawn prayer, all the assistant pastors would go to breakfast together after the prayer meeting, so the church on the second floor there was a church that owner opened? Thinking that the world is really small when you think about it, I put my curiosity aside and decided that I should visit the church that I had pioneered when I had the chance. That day, a special dawn prayer meeting was held at the church, and all the ministers, regardless of where they lived, participated in the prayer meeting. After the prayer meeting, just like before, there was no place to eat breakfast, so I headed toward the Seolleongtang restaurant in Sinsa-dong that was open 24 hours. I told the others to go in first, and I headed to the church on the second floor. The church was a time for free prayer after the dawn prayer. A few people were coming down the stairs after the prayer. I went up the stairs and entered the church, and the pastor’s wife, who had just finished praying, was putting her shoes away. So I said hello, but she didn’t recognize me at all and asked me who I was as if it was strange that a complete stranger had come to the church at this hour after the dawn prayer. So I told him everything that had happened so far and asked him to meet me, and he greeted me warmly and told me to wait a moment before he went out and brought the pastor out. The two of them had not changed much since before, so I could tell at a glance that they were the president and his wife at that time. When the president’s wife gave the pastor a brief explanation and introduced me, the pastor seemed not to remember me either. So I explained it again, and he vaguely recalled the memories. He was so happy to see me. And as we talked for a while, we shared stories from that time one by one, and we were happy to see each other as if we were old comrades meeting again after a long time. He proudly told me that many wives and ministers had come out of that restaurant. Although we were from different denominations, we were grateful for each other’s status, one of us being a pastor and the other being a pastor candidate. And soon after, my ordination ceremony and missionary dispatch service took place. The pastor came to congratulate me with a Bible as a gift, and until now, he has been interested in the mission work, praying for me and supporting me, and when he visited me occasionally, he bought me delicious food and encouraged me. It has already been 35 years since I first met him, so this relationship could not have been anything other than a special gift from God.
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