::A Geek in Korea::

I was riding the subway to go downtown with my wife to look at wallpaper for the new house. While we were riding, the subway was filled to near capacity. We had to go several stops, so I wanted to sit down, listen to The Bugle, and wait until we got to our destination. I was scouting out different places that might open up at each spot. Every time there was always someone waiting to snatch the seat when someone left.

Sensing we had simple picked a bad spot to stand to wait for a seat, I went off on my own to find a seat. I was in luck, as a group of teens exited in mass, and I grabbed the last seat that wasn’t snatched up by the other riders.

I was sitting in my spot, clearly listening to my headphones, not paying attention to anyone. Then, the elderly man next to me patted my leg and said, “Hanguk mal chal haseyo?”. “Do you speak Korean well?”

This is ALWAYS a way to get on my bad side. By asking in Korean if I speak well, I can either come off as an idiot and say, “No”, or come off as an over confident person that’s going to have to answer a bunch of other annoying questions by saying, “Yes”.

The “correct” answer is always modesty (false or not). You say, “A little”, “Cho-kum?” in Korean, shrug, then wait while they compliment you. This is the routine. This is what most people do to get out of the situation. It’s a total lose-lose situation when an old guy asks you that sort of question. It’s slightly more acceptable when it’s an attractive woman, but not much.

Imagine walking up to any foreigner on the street of your home town and asking them if they speak English, or whatever the language the majority of the population might be. See, you wouldn’t because you know that makes the foreigner uncomfortable, and it makes you look like a jackass. Here, that means you are “curious” and possibly “adventurous” to talk to someone different.

I dislike being touched by strangers, and really dislike being bothered when I’m listening to something that requires me to rewind my podcast. I took one look at the guy, said, “Yes, I speak Korean well.” Before he could even say another word, I spoke to him in English while pointing to my headphones and said, “You can CLEARLY see I’m listening to something. Please, do not bother me.”

Had I said this in Korean, I probably would have been using rude language that I learned from one of my bad students. It’s probably best if the guy couldn’t understand what I said and my face got the “I’m annoyed, don’t bother me” message across.

I then turned my head to ignore the man. I waited for the next stop on the subway with great intensity. When the door opened, I left the subway, walked up the side, and re-entered the train next to my wife, careful not to turn around to see if anyone was staring at me. I ducked into the slot reserved for motorized wheel chairs so that no one that saw me speaking to the man would see I got back on the subway. I just didn’t want to be hassled again.

My wife insists I didn’t do anything rude or wrong by not indulging this man in his questions. She said I should just lie next time and say, “No.” I hate being talked down to by old strangers on the street telling me obvious things. I also really hate being corrected in Korean for speaking Korean poorly. The sheer fact that I can understand that I am being scolded should be enough effort to give me a free pass to ignore the scolding itself. I’m not going to invest in ridiculously oversized headphones just to get people to leave me alone either.

My best bet, ironically, is to just stand on the subway. Far fewer old people bother me then.