Stare, but Please Don’t Touch

I’m white. Yes, I’m Caucasian, but to clarify, I tip the scale on the extremely fair side. Many protest my skin tone is not that pale and their skin is in fact much lighter (thank you make-up & build-a-tan lotions for hiding my true tone). Still, I will always swing out my arm and compare, watching their jaws drop ever so slightly, eye widened, “You are white,” is almost always muttered in dismay. I also have saucer blue eyes. I tell you this because as a 5’9’’ blonde girl skipping around Seoul, 6’3’’ boy in tow, we got looks. Plenty of them.


While hiking the Suwon wall, locals constantly would stop and gawk. We actually stopped traffic.

No, seriously.

When we walked through the town, cars stopped and people actually craned their necks and unabashedly stared at us. Example: Sasha and I are hiking up on the wall and I spot a family coming our way. I look down and scoot to the left to let them pass and right below my nose pops up a young girl (personal space—not a familiar concept to Koreans). “You, picture?” she says. I look at her clutching a camera. “Oh, you would like me to take your picture?” I stutter while simultaneously pantomiming me clicking a camera. She nods, hands the camera to a girl behind her, the family lines up next to the wall and the girl slips in between Sasha and me. I’m confused. The sister happily chirps “Smile,” as it finally hits me she wants to take a picture with us. Sasha and I exchange bewildered looks and smile. Snap. The girls quickly change spots to snap another shot. The girl smiles at me at her right, I smile back. She turns to her left and gives out a small yelp and jumps back. Sasha’s height induced an unexpected reaction and I can’t hold back my laugh.

The photo ops were strange, yet harmless. People are curious and understandably so. And in order to entertain someone’s genuine curiosity, I’m fairly open to answering questions, taking pictures and the like, with one exceedingly serious caveat: one must at least attempt to seek permission to invade my space. If you are going to touch me and we don’t know each other, please ask.

My pre-travel research strongly recommended I include hand sanitizer in my purse. And boy did I love my hand sanitizer during this trip. My baby wipes came in handing too (There might have been a bus chase at one point of our trip and Sasha may have tripped and ripped off the skin of his palms, knee and side and baby wipes may have helped clean up/stop all the blood and such before we could get to a pharmacy, but you’ll have to ask Sasha to hear the details about that story). Point is: baby wipes and hand sanitizer = good.

Hand sanitizer is especially wonderful when two of your destinations top the world’s largest, densest cities list and your preferred mode of transportation is public. I’m not a germaphobe by almost any standard—rub some dirt in that wound—nevertheless, given the US’s H1V1 scare, Tokyo’s obsession with facial masks and my Seoul research telling me that Koreans are extremely hygienic folk and perceive Americans as very foul creatures—I hoped my hand sanitizer mania would promote a “sanitary” American image. Travel books and blogs explained that Koreans strongly believe their peoples to be the cleanest on this here planet we call Earth. Basically, Koreans are clean, everyone else is not. And I interpreted such a bold statement as truth. The travel blogs said so.

Blogs and Koreans lied.

Vitaliy clarified the statement: Koreans perceive themselves as clean. Perception and reality do not always align.

Bad habits:

Koreans like to spit.

Koreans like to spit everywhere. Huge, disgusting loogies. Man wearing a nice suit: spits one while walking the street. Girl next to the street vendor, spits away; child at school; people on the subway; wherever, whenever, they spit.

Koreans cough.

Everyone coughs, but Westerners have been instructed to either cover one’s mouth with your hand or cough into your elbow, maybe a nice hankie. Not the Koreans. Just cough it out. You know, on anyone. No big deal. Cough all your germs on me. Yeah. That’s great.

Koreans do not believe in blowing one’s nose.

They just don’t. It’s considered rude. Yes, trapping one’s germs into a disposable tissue is rude.

Koreans touch white people without asking.

To top off bad habits, Koreans do not prescribe to the American (and city Ukrainian) belief in personal space: This is my bubble, please leave it alone. One of Vitaliy’s American colleagues has gorgeous milky skin and beautiful blonde hair. She shared one of her biggest culture shocks with me. Whenever she boards a subway, out of the corner of her eye, she often sees an elderly woman eyeing her. The woman will slowly start to scoot her way near Hannah. Like a small child, if Hannah looks at the women, the woman will briskly look away as if she is not up to anything bad. Once Hannah looks back, the scooting begins once more until the woman is centimeters away from Hannah and grabs her face. Korean woman apparently love touching Hannah’s face. They take their hands and circle her face, releasing Hannah with a final word, “Beautiful,” and begin to scoot away as if nothing happened.



Hannah says she has now gotten used to this ritual. Freaks me out. Subways are not very, um…clean, and someone touching my face after holding onto metro surfaces raises the hairs on the back of my neck. So when I was standing on the subway and someone began to pet my hair—I flipped out a little. Understandably, Koreans do not have blonde hair, but petting my head while in a metro car and maybe assuming I would not notice underestimated my hair sensitivity.


What’s with all the Richard Simmons?

Vitaliy hanging with the Simmons ladies

Older women in Korea have a uniform. A clearly defined and strictly followed uniform. Women of a certain age don white or black shape-up shoes [http://www.skechers.com/shoes-and-clothing/styles/trends/skechers_fitness/list], polyester tan or black leisure pants, a light jacket, and top off their outfit with a glitter infected 18-inch brimmed visor on their Richard Simmons permed hair. And the beady eyes. They all have beady-eyes. These women reminded me of sneaky weasels.

Women REALLY liked these visor caps

 

In Korea, age dictates your place in society. The older one is the more authority one holds. So my best friend from elementary school who was one week older than me would have the power to boss me around because she is one week older than me. Business conversations can begin with age clarifications so that everyone can understand their “place.” Obviously, Westerns struggle with this cultural structure—especially in business situations. Consequently, older women, because of their age hold more power in society. The gender ratio of men to women older than 65 is .63 men/women.

Korean subway cars designate the six seats at the end of the each car for the elderly, the disabled, pregnant women and people with children. (Not once did I see a pregnant woman or parent with children be allowed to sit there though, read on). These three burgundy seats across from each other cap off each car. When waiting on the metro platform, arrows indicate where one should stand to enter a car. An arrow with the car number in the middle is bookend with two sets of green footprints to each side. Most people stand next to the footprints, calmly waiting for the subway. The elderly do not. (Vitaliy’s written about this on his blog, but it’s worth another mention.) These women narrow their eyes as they see the subway approaching, ball up their hands into fists, pull their elbows to their ribs, jut their heads down and out so as to eliminate their necks and begin to dig their way through the crowd like gophers to get to the front of the line. Once they have elbowed their way to the front (innocent bystander bruised rib cage to prove it!) they begin to wind themselves up like Sonic the Hedgehog. The subway pulls up and before allowing the car to empty; these women lower their heads and burrow their way through to their designated seats like vicious moles. Yet almost every single time they find the seats taken by other elderly women. Then the women would let out exacerbated sighs upon the discovery of their taken seats. Every time. They would shake their heads in discontent and narrow their eyes some more, staring at the woman sitting in “their” seat.

They were like vultures when it came to seats. Circling someone who would break and give up their seat. It’s not as if there was a shortage of young folk offering their seats either! If someone young saw an elder standing near them, seats were always offered—it’s just that for some reason, these women would stick to their designated section and glare at the other older women sitting down. They wanted their seats.

It was hilarious fun watching this game played at each and every stop. Always the same, yet always entertaining.

Sasha fit right in with the Koreans