I ride the subway line three stops until I go to work. My wife sticks on the subway for a good 20 minutes or so both ways, so she sees a lot more crazy stuff on the subway than I do. She’s been telling me about the strange stuff she sees from time to time. Most of it involves old people hitting people.
When she was riding the subway yesterday, she heard a younger Korean girl only speaking English. The girl had been abroad for such a long time that she had only basic Korean skills. The girl was sitting on the subway talking to her friend in English when the old man next to her hit her on the head and said, “Hey! WHY are you speaking ENGLISH! SPEAK KOREAN!” It wasn’t even her grandparent or anything. Just a random stranger.
Even my wife isn’t spared the abuse. She rode the subway downtown last weekend. While she was riding, she was working on something in her lap, and had her leg crossed. She was wearing shorts, but nothing revealing. Nothing above the knee was being shown, and even if you contorted your view and tried to look down the flap of fabric, you weren’t seeing anything beyond some thigh about the knee. Completely modest shorts.
While my wife was concentrating on whatever it was in her hands, maybe sending a message on a phone or whatever, this old guy that was walking by stops, and starts staring at her. Old people with body space issues aren’t exactly uncommon, but this guy sorts of stares for a bit. My wife didn’t say anything. Then grabs his paper hand fan, and hits her leg as if he was an old style school principal with a ruler. He hit her leg, then casually moves on.
That’s how social norms are enforced here from the top down. Old people go whacking people on the leg or head, and you can’t say anything to them. I’ve had old people mutter things at me on the subway, usually when I’ve got a music playing device in my ear. I don’t know what they tell me. I just nod and agree, wait for my exit, leave, and make sure no one follows me. Anyone poking a foreigner and muttering in Korean something about manners is probably not someone I really want to spend any time talking with in any real detail.
