Train and Taxi Trauma
They say people feel lonelier in the winter. I’m beginning to see the truth of this adage not so much for myself (though friends and family are #1 on the list of things I miss), but more in those around me. Sunday night, I was on my way home from dinner with a few friends. A Korean guy, probably late twenties, walked past me. Turned around, not once, but THREE times, to look at me. I was the only one around, so I doubt he was checking out the light post. In this culture, it is not considered rude to stare. If you catch someone staring, they don’t immediately look away like they do at home. They just keep right on looking at you without so much as flinching. (Which explains why last weekend, an older man looked at me for 43 minutes of a 45 minute train ride. I finally looked straight at him and raised my eyebrows in the “Yes?” way, and he looked out the window. Bizarre. But seriously people, I’m not that interesting. You can see a whitey any old time, we aren’t that special). So when we got to the corner of the street, he looked at me twice more, but I continued looking away. Finally he said hello to me in Korean. I said hello back. He told me I had beautiful hair (ha! I’ve been asked several times if this is my real color. I hardly think I’d go light brown if I were dying it, but anyway) and I said thanks. Then the light turned green and we started to walk across the intersection and he kept talking to me, though I was practicing my blank stare to his Korean. I was walking into the Carrefour and he asked if I was going to the market. I said yes, and he walked right on in with me. I was confused. Did we just agree to go together? I don’t think so, that part was in English. So I just started to slow down my walk. He turned around and looked at me like, “Umm what are you doing?” But I just started browsing through the items that were next to me, and I guess he got the point. Strange. Well then yesterday I was on the train back from class and a younger guy sat next to me. Some old man was giving his spill in the middle of the subway car on the pens he was selling, and I sorta smirked, but the guy next to me bought a pack. Then he gave me one. It’s a horrid yellow, but I said thanks, which apparently opened the door for him to ask me what I was doing. Pal, I’m reading Korean, can’t you tell? He had terrible smoker’s breath and it sorta nauseated me every time he spoke. But he practiced a little English (if you’ve never been to this site, check out www.engrish.com) and I practiced a little Korean. He asked me where my subway stop was, so I told him. His was the next one. He told me there’s a good tea shop near my subway, so I asked where and he didn’t know how to tell me. Anyway, I pretended to fall asleep on the train so that he’d stop talking to me and making me feel queasy with the stale cigarette on his breath. Finally, the train reached my stop, I said goodbye and have a good day. I walked down to the door at the other end of the car so that I didn’t have to stand next to this guy and it be awkward while I waited for the doors to open. I got out and walked up the stairs to exit. I swiped my card at the turnstile and walked through when, low and behold, there’s my pen donator! He said, “Hi.” I said, “What are you doing?” He pointed to the sign and said he was going to the pedestrian underpass. I asked what for, because really, who goes to a different subway stop to walk underneath the street? He asked if I had time. I knew he was talking about going to the tea shop, but I pointed to my watch to act like I didn’t understand, and I showed him the time. He said “No, no. You are busy?” I said, “Yes, I work. I am late.” Completely bogus. He asked if I had a hand phone (that’s their term for cell phone). I said, “I have email” being careful not to say I didn’t have a hand phone, because just my luck it would ring right as I fibbed. He handed me one of his new pens and asked for me to write my address, so I can’t help but think—this guy is strange! I mean, he reeks of tobacco (the cigarette maker here is called KT&G for Korea Tobacco and Ginseng. Gotta try to balance out the junk with something good, kill your lungs, help your brain, right?), he doesn’t speak much English, and he followed a complete stranger off the train! Even if I were the least bit interested, where could this possibly go? So I gave him the junk address that I also gave to the Christian Crusader guys. He promised to write. I promised to bring a mask.
Today I was on the train, and I’ve learned that it’s clearly the place for drama if there’s going to be any. Some Korean man, somewhere in his forties, walked up to me and asked if I spoke English. I gave an affirmative “Yes” and he said he worked in Moscow and wanted to know if I had any Russian friends here because he wants to practice that language. Red flag! Translation: If you aren’t a prostitute, do you have any friends who are, so that I may pick them up? He gave me his email and phone number so that I could pass it along to my Russian pals and they could proceed to “talk.” I could be completely jumping the gun, but it’s more amusing to think of it this way, and since I’m still a bit insulted at being asked if I’m from the former USSR, I’m going with it.
Going back to the topic of masks from earlier, I’ve seen several people here with these surgeon-looking masks that hook around their ears and cover their mouth and nose. I figured it was people concerned about breathing in all the polluted air, but I found out that it’s common courtesy of those who have a cold to help minimize the spreading of their germs. What a nice idea! I told this to one of my friends, who said, “Why do that? I mean, I don’t care if I get other people sick.” I said, “Yeah but think about it—if they do it and it prevents YOU from getting sick, you’re thankful.” Then he agreed that it’s a good idea.
I joined one of my American classmates from Korean class this past Saturday night in seeing the fireworks on a small island inside the city. We got there with only a few minutes left of the show, but it was really neat nonetheless. They were over the Han River, which many of you know I’m obsessed with, and near the Pier 63 building, a well-known sky-scraper. We sat near some people from Montana and Indiana. Really nice people, also here teaching English, of course. The girl from Montana has been here for a year and a half and goes home for the holidays. Yeah right! I miss my friends and family, but if I were going to spend a grand for the holidays, it would either be on gifts to ship back or on going somewhere I can’t go for such a low price from the US. Not returning somewhere I’ve spent two decades.
Anyway! Well, we know this is a large city. The world’s fifth largest, to be exact, with around 12 million people. You’d think it would be pretty slim odds to run into someone you know. I am here to tell you, as a now four-time veteran of this happenstance, that this is not the case. My Russian friend Ilya was celebrating his birthday this weekend, and invited me to a small bar in a small area with him and several friends. (If you want pictures, let me know! They are uploaded on Kodak and ready to share!) I finished watching the fireworks show and had his friend Alex meet me at the train station to show me the way. The place was so reclusive that I surely would’ve been lost had it not been for Alex’s help. As I walked in to the second floor of this place, who do I walk in and see but Justin, Brian who I went through training with (refer to the Namsan Mountain pictures) and Andy, who I walk home from work with each night, sitting at the same table! They’d been at a bar prior and ran into these European guys, who seemed to be having a good time and invited them to join. The party was then moved to bar numero dos, where I come into the picture. Brian was entirely too drunk to understand the coincidence, so they poured the beer, ordered food, and all passed a good time. We said cheers to the Korean guys at the table next to us who were celebrating a birthday. Koreans like to pretend they are going to fight, but many of them are huge wusses and would never. So they stand up and have their friends hold them back while they holler about being bigger and better than the other guy. It’s pretty comical, and nothing ever happens. This happened at the table next to us, and it was entertainment for a minute, then we blew them off as just another false threat. So our two tables full of people went to a dance club afterwards, girls got in free, and there were only two other people in the entire place who weren’t working there. Birthday boy disappeared somewhere along the way to the club, but the rest of us went in and cut a rug. They played all American music, maybe one exception. The Russian girls were dancing like madwomen—shaking their heads and tails and living it up. The guys here have no shame in getting out on the dance floor, so it wasn’t like an American club where it looks like an eighth grade dance up until the last hour when the opposite sex is no longer sober enough to care. We had a blast! Andy and I split a cab home, but the driver took us to the wrong part of town, though we warned him more than once along the way that we thought he was going in the wrong direction. We heard him on the radio after we arrived at the wrong destination—he told his dispatcher that he was going to “the other one” now. Andy, who’d had a few too many drinks mixing in his head, was pretty ticked off and took to arguing with the man. The driver said he’d hurry and bring us to the right domicile. It was nearly 4am and he’d certainly wasted our time, but now he was trying to waste our money. The bill when he arrived in Gangseo, rather than Mok Dong, was $25. We split $15 and gave it to him. He said $20. Andy told the driver that may not be able to speak Korean very well, but he can understand it, and the man knew where to go and that he intentionally took us elsewhere. Then he told the man he was a bad cab driver. Ha! Don’t insult a cab driver about his professional ability! He disagreed and kept saying he wasn’t a bad driver, and we just got out and walked through the 50-degree weather to our building. What a night!
Some people have expressed concern about my work situation because of all the horror stories of people not getting paid, not getting reimbursed, and in some cases even abused by their Korean employers. Mr Lee is a really cool boss for the US, but he’s an especially cool boss for Korea. He and the rest of the staff totally take care of us. One of our first days here, Andy and I came in after shopping for staple items for our new homes, and mentioned how some things are really cheap, but a plastic plate was $5. The next day, Mr Lee brought dishes for us. The first two weeks, he bought our lunch and several dinners. He has bought meals since then and for Thanksgiving gave us all two really nice bottles of red wine (my fave!!) Amy or Debbie bring in “vitamin drinks” and tell us to drink up, “eez good for healz.” They could be poisoning me for all I know, but knock on wood, I have yet to get sick. Amy comes in my class every day and asks me what I want for lunch. They make sure we are eating well, because a hungry teacher is a tired teacher, and a tired teacher is no good. Alex always delivers snacks to the classroom and with his very, very broken English, says we’re good teachers. From what I’ve heard from people at other schools, we are treated like royalty. I heard of one guy whose boss threw a coffee mug at him. Um, OUCH! The Canadian who suggested that I’m mistaken for a Russian prostitute said his boss owed him several thousand dollars—his last month’s pay as well as airfare. I don’t anticipate that happening with my school given the way we’ve been cared for thus far.
Copyright 2005 Olivia R. Reed
Today I was on the train, and I’ve learned that it’s clearly the place for drama if there’s going to be any. Some Korean man, somewhere in his forties, walked up to me and asked if I spoke English. I gave an affirmative “Yes” and he said he worked in Moscow and wanted to know if I had any Russian friends here because he wants to practice that language. Red flag! Translation: If you aren’t a prostitute, do you have any friends who are, so that I may pick them up? He gave me his email and phone number so that I could pass it along to my Russian pals and they could proceed to “talk.” I could be completely jumping the gun, but it’s more amusing to think of it this way, and since I’m still a bit insulted at being asked if I’m from the former USSR, I’m going with it.
Going back to the topic of masks from earlier, I’ve seen several people here with these surgeon-looking masks that hook around their ears and cover their mouth and nose. I figured it was people concerned about breathing in all the polluted air, but I found out that it’s common courtesy of those who have a cold to help minimize the spreading of their germs. What a nice idea! I told this to one of my friends, who said, “Why do that? I mean, I don’t care if I get other people sick.” I said, “Yeah but think about it—if they do it and it prevents YOU from getting sick, you’re thankful.” Then he agreed that it’s a good idea.
I joined one of my American classmates from Korean class this past Saturday night in seeing the fireworks on a small island inside the city. We got there with only a few minutes left of the show, but it was really neat nonetheless. They were over the Han River, which many of you know I’m obsessed with, and near the Pier 63 building, a well-known sky-scraper. We sat near some people from Montana and Indiana. Really nice people, also here teaching English, of course. The girl from Montana has been here for a year and a half and goes home for the holidays. Yeah right! I miss my friends and family, but if I were going to spend a grand for the holidays, it would either be on gifts to ship back or on going somewhere I can’t go for such a low price from the US. Not returning somewhere I’ve spent two decades.
Anyway! Well, we know this is a large city. The world’s fifth largest, to be exact, with around 12 million people. You’d think it would be pretty slim odds to run into someone you know. I am here to tell you, as a now four-time veteran of this happenstance, that this is not the case. My Russian friend Ilya was celebrating his birthday this weekend, and invited me to a small bar in a small area with him and several friends. (If you want pictures, let me know! They are uploaded on Kodak and ready to share!) I finished watching the fireworks show and had his friend Alex meet me at the train station to show me the way. The place was so reclusive that I surely would’ve been lost had it not been for Alex’s help. As I walked in to the second floor of this place, who do I walk in and see but Justin, Brian who I went through training with (refer to the Namsan Mountain pictures) and Andy, who I walk home from work with each night, sitting at the same table! They’d been at a bar prior and ran into these European guys, who seemed to be having a good time and invited them to join. The party was then moved to bar numero dos, where I come into the picture. Brian was entirely too drunk to understand the coincidence, so they poured the beer, ordered food, and all passed a good time. We said cheers to the Korean guys at the table next to us who were celebrating a birthday. Koreans like to pretend they are going to fight, but many of them are huge wusses and would never. So they stand up and have their friends hold them back while they holler about being bigger and better than the other guy. It’s pretty comical, and nothing ever happens. This happened at the table next to us, and it was entertainment for a minute, then we blew them off as just another false threat. So our two tables full of people went to a dance club afterwards, girls got in free, and there were only two other people in the entire place who weren’t working there. Birthday boy disappeared somewhere along the way to the club, but the rest of us went in and cut a rug. They played all American music, maybe one exception. The Russian girls were dancing like madwomen—shaking their heads and tails and living it up. The guys here have no shame in getting out on the dance floor, so it wasn’t like an American club where it looks like an eighth grade dance up until the last hour when the opposite sex is no longer sober enough to care. We had a blast! Andy and I split a cab home, but the driver took us to the wrong part of town, though we warned him more than once along the way that we thought he was going in the wrong direction. We heard him on the radio after we arrived at the wrong destination—he told his dispatcher that he was going to “the other one” now. Andy, who’d had a few too many drinks mixing in his head, was pretty ticked off and took to arguing with the man. The driver said he’d hurry and bring us to the right domicile. It was nearly 4am and he’d certainly wasted our time, but now he was trying to waste our money. The bill when he arrived in Gangseo, rather than Mok Dong, was $25. We split $15 and gave it to him. He said $20. Andy told the driver that may not be able to speak Korean very well, but he can understand it, and the man knew where to go and that he intentionally took us elsewhere. Then he told the man he was a bad cab driver. Ha! Don’t insult a cab driver about his professional ability! He disagreed and kept saying he wasn’t a bad driver, and we just got out and walked through the 50-degree weather to our building. What a night!
Some people have expressed concern about my work situation because of all the horror stories of people not getting paid, not getting reimbursed, and in some cases even abused by their Korean employers. Mr Lee is a really cool boss for the US, but he’s an especially cool boss for Korea. He and the rest of the staff totally take care of us. One of our first days here, Andy and I came in after shopping for staple items for our new homes, and mentioned how some things are really cheap, but a plastic plate was $5. The next day, Mr Lee brought dishes for us. The first two weeks, he bought our lunch and several dinners. He has bought meals since then and for Thanksgiving gave us all two really nice bottles of red wine (my fave!!) Amy or Debbie bring in “vitamin drinks” and tell us to drink up, “eez good for healz.” They could be poisoning me for all I know, but knock on wood, I have yet to get sick. Amy comes in my class every day and asks me what I want for lunch. They make sure we are eating well, because a hungry teacher is a tired teacher, and a tired teacher is no good. Alex always delivers snacks to the classroom and with his very, very broken English, says we’re good teachers. From what I’ve heard from people at other schools, we are treated like royalty. I heard of one guy whose boss threw a coffee mug at him. Um, OUCH! The Canadian who suggested that I’m mistaken for a Russian prostitute said his boss owed him several thousand dollars—his last month’s pay as well as airfare. I don’t anticipate that happening with my school given the way we’ve been cared for thus far.
Copyright 2005 Olivia R. Reed
posted by LSULiv | 9:09 PM
2 Comments:
Missy,
You are a wonderful storyteller... your tales of everyday things are interesting and informative, I'm learning while being entertained and experiencing part of your life, thoughts, and feelings... You're a good kid and I'm proud of you! (C: Love you, Dad
Olivia....ditto to everything your Dad said...Aunt Carolyn
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