Now I have concrete evidence that I have in fact been in Korea a remarkably long time. Way back in this post, five years to this very day, was when I started calling and referring to one of the downtown video game store owners as "shady". I thought he was very sketchy with his business practices when he sold someone a modified Playstation 2 capable of playing illegal copies. At the time, however, he was the only person selling what we wanted in the entire city, so we tolerated this.
After getting burned by him a few times, I declared I would never shop at his store again, even in a moment of complete boredom and weakness when downtown. Eventually the smug man that ripped me off was replaced by extremely smug evil looking young men that were even less likely to get my business. The service went from "condescending and rude" to simply "rude and intolerable". I started shopping at stores nearby, going to Seoul, or shopping online at a premium to avoid paying this guy money for games I wanted. He was one of the few people I really had a grudge with. I made sure that anyone asking me for places to buy games never went there.
Eventually when I would go downtown I would give a stare over to his side of the techno mall. Not many other people seemed to be stopping there either. Perhaps word got around that he liked to sell pirated stuff and that the owners were rude people that offered no service after the sale.
The last time I went downtown, I noticed the store had been completely ripped out and there was simply blank space in its place. Success! I had won! The bastard went out of business, or moved, before I ever spent money with him again. The victory was hard fought, and took a long time, but I came out victorious in the end.
Things probably won’t come to this again. I have a store by my old apartment and current job that will import for me, sells legit copies of games, and has a friendly staff. No longer to I need to suffer the ride downtown to be looked down on by rude store owners.
It only took five years, which is a remarkable time in small business in South Korea. My wife’s falling out with a local knitting school and supply shop only lasted as long as the current mild winter had her making wool items. The school closed when it started trying to charge knitters for lessons after the coldest days of the year had past. She just wanted to knit a sweater for our dog to look cute, and now they are going out of business. Watch out, we are a couple that will make or break a store’s success by our very act of shopping there. Beware our wrath.
