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www.groovekorea.com / January 2015 90 Edited by Jenny Na (jenny@groovekorea.com) COmmuNITy their patrons and friends. The shelves are lined with autographed liquor bottles that he will never sell and foreign currency he will never cash in. Hometown team jerseys and flags from the world over are hung on all available wall space and even the ceiling, and when Kim is gifted with another, he finds room for it. He even keeps the beer bot- tle caps now. “Everything is a memory,” he says. The expats of Guri do their fair share of drink- ing, something they do not hide. But it isn’t just about that, says American Jennifer Proctor, a for- mer Guri resident of four years who moved to the UAE in September. “It was about shooting pool, playing friendly poker games ... and connecting with people who are in the same position you are in: far away from friends, family and everything familiar to you.” Her favorite part of living here, she says, was throwing holiday parties with a Western-style meal to bring everyone together, including those who didn’t usually come out to the bar, wheth- er they celebrated that holiday in their country or not. Every year Kim and Misa open the bar before or after hours for July 4 barbecues, Canada Day dinners, braais and American Thanksgiving feasts — provided they too get a plate of the servings. “They go out of their way to welcome you (not only) into their bar but, more importantly, their lives. They open up their place so we can have those parties that make us feel like we are home, at least for a little while,” says Proctor, who vis- ited in December to cook a Christmas dinner for everyone as she has in years past. The couple is willing to be friends with anyone who wants to befriend them. Stay out until clos- ing and, providing that you have been friendly with them, too, they’re almost sure to invite you to partake in breakfast and soju until sunrise. At the table there will likely be a mix of Koreans and foreigners, and even with very little shared lan- guage, they will still become your friends because they’re all the type of people that Kim and Misa attract. “There’s a suave mix of Koreans and foreign- ers somehow getting along and interacting in a way that would make the United Nations jealous,” says Zane Bale, an American on his third year in Guri. “Kim and Misa have somehow built a public living room. There’s an overwhelming feeling of comfort and privacy.” Robinson says these kinds of encounters give expats and Koreans a better way to interact out- side of work and learn “not just the differences, but the things people tend to forget — which are the things we all have in common.” Schlueter notes that the expat community can very easily become lost in itself, insulated from Koreans, learning and absorbing very little of the country they came to live in. “Being with Kim made it easier for me to make more Korean friends,” he says. “They truly make you feel like you are at home or with family when you are on the other side of the planet, and that is a tough thing to do.” ‘Guri is my foundation. It’s the place that really cemented my commitment to forging a life abroad and becoming a citizen of the world. I left Guri for the same reason that I decided to travel there: my desire to explore the unknown.’ Evan Foster, former Guri resident