Flashback – A Weird first Encounter

Wednesday, February 10, 2010:

♣     Wow it is hard to believe that it is already 2010.  That sounds futuristic somehow still, like something out of a sci-fi novel, rather than the current year.  The present always does seem so much more mundane than the future.  And, the grass is always greener…    So I looked and it has been a ridiculous amount of time since I last posted here (way to go, Ben) but I guess I have stopped surprising myself with my bad habits and maybe it is time to just stop apologizing for the lapses from now on.  I guess they are just going to occur.  I am a little bored at work (meaning that there is actually a bunch of stuff that I should be doing but nothing is pressing) and somehow I actually got the urge to blog.  Well I often get the urge but it is easily pushed aside to make room for something else.  What I had in mind wasn’t about Jeju or any of the other more recent things that I really should be writing about but rather an interesting anecdote that I was remembering today.  So here goes:

♣     The following recollection happened within the first few days of my being here in Anseong I was still very much a stranger in a strange land, and I still had western social customs floating near the top of brain.  (So keep that in mind as you read.)

I had arrived on a Wednesday, I believe, and had a pretty busy first couple of days.  Then, the weekend came and suddenly I had absolutely nothing to do.  I knew not a single person in Anseong and I new nothing of Anseong itself but I really didn’t want to just spend the night sitting in my crappy little apartment and really didn’t feel like spending time trying fix it up at the moment.  My computer battery had died and I had no way to charge it and no internet in the apt even if I could use it.  So, instead of sitting and watching a variety of Korean dramas, other strange shows or picking one of couple crappy 80’s American action movies, I decided to just go out and wonder around for a bit.  I felt like taking the loaf of bread my co-teacher had left in the apartment and pulling a hansel and gretel, leaving crumbs to find my way home.  The place where I live is like a dirty rabbit warren.  In fact, I still get turned around once in a while.  I walked towards all the lights and eventually found the main little downtown shopping center and the place where all the little bars and restaurants are.  I wondered around these streets for a while window shopping and just sort of enjoying being out and seeing things until (and if you know me you won’t be surprised) I thought I’d stop in one of the little bars and grab a pint of beer.

So, I stopped in this one place that caught my attention, they huge assortment of western beers in the window.  I went in, and the pint turned into a small pitcher (I mean if you think about it it is cheaper that way) and I was sitting at a table by myself enjoying my beer and watching, in something akin to awe, the terribly bad and ridiculous K-Pop performances that were playing on the television when a group of Korean guys came in and sat down around the table next to mine.  They were loud and already a little red-faced when they arrive and the proceeded to order and down a surprising amount of beer in a very short time (even by western standards) and very soon I found myself inducted into there table, or rather their table morphed around mine.  They kept turning towards me and asking me questions and trying their best to speak both English and Korean with me.  I don’t think they could quite fathom the idea that I was living in Korea (in a small town like this) without being able to speak some Korean or, more probably, the idea was just having difficulty getting past all the alcohol fumes.  At any rate there was almost a complete communication breakdown and even talk-see wasn’t working all that well. Cheers is a universal gesture and that worked pretty well but things didn’t get a lot deeper than that.  It was still fun, if a little awkward, and I was bored and alone.  In the end, several of them left and one needed help to leave and the others just squeezed in my booth.  I say “squeezed” because there were two people suddenly sitting next to me where one person would have made it rather uncomfortable.

This is where the story gets interesting.  I noticed (I won’t say suddenly because I had been noticing it for a while) that the guy sitting next to me was being very very friendly.  He was the one most interested in talking to me.  He was sitting very close to me, Koreans in general have a very different take on personal space from most westerners.  And, he kept trying to pour me drinks.  It was quite awkward to me and getting more so as the minutes went buy when getting tired of not understanding me he got the idea of calling a his “girlfriend” who could speak English.  Let’s just say that I was starting to have sneaking suspicions about his sexuality so talking to his girlfriend, the very fact that he had one was really reassuring.

She could speak fairly well but not great and talking on the phone in a loud bar did not facilitate understanding.  Still we got farther than we had previously and she finally conveyed the idea that he had been trying to iterate for the last while.  This was that he really liked me and wanted to be good friends, this at least is what my understanding of it at the time was.  So, I said (still reassured at this point) that that would be nice and I would like to be friends.  I thought it would be great to have a Korean friend or at least know somebody that I could hang out with, even if I couldn’t understand him.  Then, just before getting off the phone with her for the last time, she let it be known that she wasn’t his “girlfriend” as we understand the term but merely his friend that was a girl.  Oh…     So, a few minutes later I try to leave and they all leave too.  I guess they only stayed there that long because the one guy was so interested in talking to me.  Things got even more awkward.  I tried to pay for my drinks and he wouldn’t let me.  He insisted on paying for my drinks.  Um… Okay…  When we got outside, and while I was starting to try and say goodbye, he tried to grab my hand and walk off after his friends.  This was too much for me.  I kind of wanted to run. Fortunately my house lay in the opposite direction so after shaking him off (politely) I went the other way and home.

You have to remember that this is literally my first experience of Korea (outside of my school here).  At the time I was really found this really really weird.  In hind site, however, this wasn’t nearly as weird as I thought it was.  Since, then I have fully come to realize how different the etiquette is on personal space and touching and so on.  Touching is a sign of friendship.  I have had many people try to hold my hand and see grown men holding hands all the time.  I still find this kind of weird but you kind of just have to let it happen.  People live in such close proximity here that our Western idea of personal boundaries is kind of unrealistic.  Too, it is considered rude to have to pour your own drink.  In fact, it is kind of like chastising the people you are with for not being attentive.  It was a very… interesting first experience of my life in Korea.