Hulk's Boxing originally focused on the foreigners living in Cheonan, trying to provide them with not only a positive place for them to train and hang out at but also a sense of belonging to a community. In focusing mainly on the foreigners however, we kind of lost sight of the Korean members. They were given somewhat of a back burner spot and we didn't even realize we were doing this. Initially it was our boxercise class that raised our eyebrows to this. Our boxercise classes, which stemmed originally from Flipside Fitness and thus already had a following of foreigners, were quick to be labelled by many interested Korean members as being foreigners-only. We have since decided to drop our boxercise classes. Translations for our juice bar menu took me long to work out so while the English menu stood loud and proud on the juice bar wall for all to see, it was only the foreigners who were able to order from it. I used to post up English-only advertisement blurbs on the Cheonan Facebook page and other foreign-populated Facebook pages.
Slowly but surely I began to notice the special extra attention I was giving the foreigners -- the non Koreans.
Life never really turns out the way you'd like it and such is the case with Hulk's. Having said this though, I find it incredibly ironic that the community Hulk's has made me personally feel more connected and committed to is that of the Koreans. I liked the Korean people before but now I do really love them. I've got former members who have moved away for university or changed jobs, whom I haven't seen for months, occassionally come by to say hi. Many come bearing coffee, all come with smiles, and almost all of them tell us "I miss Hulk's" words of encouragement.
We went from really trying to make a community for the foreigners to trying to give back gratitude and thanks to Korea for what it's people and community have given us -- a place and means to start our dream. Part of giving back to Korea means making them feel just as important to Hulk's as our foreign population because they really are.
My Korean is by no means perfect but I try, so I try really hard to always include Korean translations for that which I post on our Hulk's Facebook page. It'd be one thing to get Snickers to write it for me but he doesn't always understand what I'm saying in English. I end up having to translate what I want say so that he can translate my translate, sound confusing?! It is. I always make sure to include both Korean and English translations for everything and anything posted within Hulk's. Moreover, I no longer play only English music for those training but instead have designated Friday as being English-only for the music played. The rest of the week, with the exception of maybe a couple of hours here or there, we listen to solely Korean music. Next year, the plan is to start getting privately tutored again, to up my Korean level so that I can communicate much more with my members.
From my own personal point of view, by me focusing so intently on the foreigners I started to disconnect myself from really learning and appreciating our Korean members. I was doing exactly what I didn't want to do, make two groups -- "them" and "us". Them being the Koreans and us being the foreigners. It was very easy for me to do so when our foreign membership numbers were very high and up there but as they began to drop, I felt myself feeling the disconnection.
Long after all our members had gone home tonight, the closed sign had been put up and work hours were well finished with for the day, Snickers and I continued to work. We had to figure out what to do with Franky-G, our scooter that has on more than a couple occasions come close to becoming squished from sliding cars. The plan was to bring him in the club, after all we've got the space, but we didn't really know if we had the means to do so. After our attempt of driving him up a wooden board on the stairs resulted with his front tire getting stuck, we were left struggling to hold a +250kg scooter from falling and possibly crushing one of us.
Then two locals walking by took it upon themselves to help us out.
A couple of weeks ago Snickers had taken a bad spill on the very steps we were standing there struggling with Franky-G. People had seen him fall and people continued to walk on by. No one helped him. We definitely didn't expect anyone to help us out after all it was past midnight and it's not like there really was anyone around anyways. But these two guys passing by did. They stopped and helped. When one of them put their hand on the back of Franky-G, I looked up and noticed it was one of our former members. I felt so relieved to have the additional help but it felt so good to know that it was one of our own. He's since stopped training at Hulk's because of work but he occasionally drops by to say hi. We invited him to our Christmas Movie Party and I hope he'll show up.
Sometimes I think by putting labels on people we sell ourselves short and sell them short too. I liked training with this particular member -- I liked his cute geekiness -- but I realized a while back I was guilty of being friendlier to our foreigner members than our Korean members. I'm trying everyday to change this because we do have such a diverse crew of members and where they come from shouldn't really matter. They're here with me, with us at Hulk's, and that's what matters. My main focus is no longer the foreigners but it isn't the Koreans either, it's our members.
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