“Oh, Jesus Chicken!” People use this phrase everyday on their Twitters and Facebook pages. For years, chicken has triggered an enormous syndrome across the field of delivery food. Students of Korea University (KU) have not been an exception. Last October, KU students who have passion in eating chicken gathered to make a formal school club. This group is called KU Chicken, and these people ask you with a smile on their faces, “Who Loves Chicken?”

Searching on the club lists on the main site of KU, students can usually find clubs related to music, dance, volunteer work, and sports. They all are directed in certain goals and people in the club try their best to acquire certain level of skills in their own field. However, this is not the case for the chicken club, KU Chicken. This group exists for chicken, moves for chicken, assembles for chicken, and of course eats chicken. Nothing academic is inserted into their existence.

“We all love chicken, and we are in fact professionals at eating chicken,” said Lee Seung Yeol (’13, School of Journalism and Mass Media), the representative of external affairs of the club. What they do is simple and to the point. Like what Lee said, they visit chicken restaurants on a regular basis, eat chicken like professionals, and grade them one by one. They evaluate chicken based on the atmosphere of the restaurant, tenderness of chicken meat, quality of meat over price, and the harmony chicken makes with the sauce.

Under the slogan “National Chicken Travel” and “Find the Most Delicious Chicken”, their purpose for meeting is to enjoy chicken as much as they like. The essence of assembly is merely enthusiasm and interest. Nobody is forced to eat menus they do not like or come to the regular conference at the restaurant. “Some would have entered this club because they wanted to make relationship with others and some would have entered to have fun. Their specific purposes will be diverse, but one core common thing would be that they love chicken,” Lee claimed.

One noticeable characteristic of KU Chicken is that they hope to spread and share their passion for chicken. They actively utilize a Facebook page for the results of their evaluation and advertisements. After their meetings in a certain restaurant, they post pictures of the chicken and the restaurant, including a map to the location as well as the evaluation scores for each chicken. They also honor the most delicious chicken by posting an exclusive photo and writing the taste of the menu in great detail.

The members of KU Chicken are also not lazy in studying chicken in depth. They post chicken-related news articles and share them to their friends so that people can read them as well. For instance, “Chicken, Soon Can Be Bought for 20,000 Won” article from the Huffington Post was about the price cut in chicken. As they posted the news, the members could not hide their joy and expectation in the comments. Hilarious pictures about chicken are also shared by these people. One illustration that drew a world map in a figure of a hen with a phrase, “If you divide world, you will see chicken”, received great applause from the members.

KU Chicken is still on their road of exploring Anam chicken restaurants. “Like how Yonsei University (YU) chicken club Phoenix began their tasty travel from the Shinchon region, we will mark the beginning point in Anam,” said Lee Hyun Seung (’13, School of Health and Environmental Science), the representative of internal affairs. According to Lee, there are a myriad of hidden chicken houses around the school and they will move on to another region after conquering Anam province. Since this is a club with a short history, the group is in the stage of collecting basic data about these restaurants.

Although KU Chicken took its first step last October, there are many friends from other universities that join the activity of the club. They are namely YU Phoenix and Seoul Women’s University Chicken-Watswu, which combined “here is the chicken” and the acronym of the school. These three clubs share basic information about chicken and their previous records. On June 28, they gathered together in Seonreung for the first time after the invitation of Goopne-Chicken for evaluation for their new menu. The name of the restaurant was 94 Street and it was the branch beer house from Goopne-Chicken brand. With YU Phoenix taking its place as the leader, these three chicken-lover groups made their first fruition of assessing chicken together.

To the question that asked the final aim of their chicken evaluation, Lee said, “It is quite of an ambitious dream and we are not sure when to publish, but we are planning on making a short booklet.” The name of the booklet will be Dakleegee or Chicken-leegee after the historical geography book Taekleegee which was made in Chosun dynasty. They will collect their Facebook evaluation posts into one and analyze them altogether in detail. According to Lee, the booklet will give enormous help not only to KU students, but also to freshmen and people from outside school. “It will definitely bring people to Anam and fill the streets,” stated Lee.

Recruitment of KU Chicken is much freer than other school clubs. In fact, going in and going out are totally dependent on the will of students. Participating in chicken conferences is not mandatory either. This club does not limit the entrance by standards. So people ranging from freshmen to postgraduates, from Liberal Arts to Natural Science majors are all gathered together. They can possibly not be friends outside the club, but at least within, they are bound with equal passion and equal love for chicken.

First recruitment of the club was last October and the second was this May. The next recruitment will be this September but the date has not been specifically chosen as this is a club of free will. There is an interview for entrance but this is just a formality. It only sees people how much fervor people have for chicken and their chicken experience. As the interview is made just for fun and humor, students will get accepted unless they say something inappropriate or against their love for chicken.

KU Chicken is indeed a heresy of the normal academic club. It is not the club of rules, regulations, and stress. They are a crowd of freedom and the only link between them is the enthusiasm of eating delicious chicken. If students are ready to raise up their hands to the question “Who loves chicken?”, then they just definitely can be a true member of this group of chicken lovers.

 

Recruiting Information

 

September, date not chosen

Contact number: Lee Seung Yeol 010-4613-4458, Lee Hyun Seung 010-6345-8901

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