Highlights of my Day... Saturday, March 28

1. No sooner had I fallen asleep last night but today I was waking up. It was 5:40 on a Saturday morning and I had to get up, walk Mi Nam, eat breakfast, and then grab the 7am bus for my 8am tutoring class.

2. My favourite jeans are no longer my favourite considering they don’t fit so snug because of my weight change. I wore them to Seoul but they were too loose. A women stepped on the cuff of them and down they came, forcing my Hello Kitty's to peek out and say “Hello”…. Hahaha.

3. Remember I told you about my Korean teacher’s wallet getting stolen last week? Well, today I got word of what really happened. So here’s the scene, last week while we were studying together a man past by our table and unknown to us no sooner had he walked by our table but he had scooped up her wallet. Yup, that’s right. He stole her wallet while we sat there. We all had thought it happened before I had arrived to tutoring and so my teacher and the cops couldn’t figure it out until they walked the whole surveillance tape. But here’s the freakish twist in the story. Once the dude got the wallet, he then proceeded to the main sitting area in the mall where his “team mates”, if you want to call them that, were waiting with their computers. They hacked into various websites that she had used, in search of the password for her credit/bank card password. Bingo, they found it and then off they went on a shopping spree. How freaky is that?! I mean, I was right there. These dudes were clearly professionals and it makes me sick how some people can totally disregard others and do such cruel things with no conscience. The police apparently know the person leading this whole operation that has been popping up a lot at the Gangnam bus terminal shopping mall but obviously they haven’t caught him yet.

4. Can’t help but feel somewhat responsible for my teacher’s situation considering she sits beside her purse and I always sit across from it. Needless to say though, when she told me the news today, I was super alert of those around me.

5. Did the daring jump and chopped my hair. Am now sporting a very Japanese-like shag-a-delish do and I love it!!!

6. It’s no big secret anymore that I have a tattoo on the back of my neck. It’s a combo of a Biblical scripture reference and a Korean word. Well apparently it was a bit too much for the hair stylist at the Leechard hair shop I stepped into today. I sat there and bit my lip while she and her pudgy little assistant went on and on about my tattoo and talked randomly and rudely about foreigners in Korea. Some of her coworkers exchanged strange glances with her, which only confirmed to me what was going on. I figured though that I’d keep quiet until she was done my hair and so that’s exactly what I did. After my hair cut, she went to help me put on my coat (after she dropped it) but I blurted out in Korean, “Don’t touch me”. I was so ticked and my hands shook a bit because I was afraid that I’d punch her. Obviously I couldn’t punch her. Because of my professional boxing license, one punch would score me a night in jail, for sure. But you know when you’re so fuming mad and you just want to knock some sense into someone?! (both literally and not). Anyways, I may not be Korean but I’m not ignorant to the Korean language and I sure as hell am not ignorant to manners, and the lack of hers.

7. Needless to say my comment was a bit loud so it quickly grabbed the attention of the packed downtown hair shop. I’d say there were over forty people there and more than half of them stopped to hear what I had to say. The stylist waved her hand at me and mumbled some swear words… that was where I just couldn’t bit my lip anymore. It was game on, baby. “No scrawny chick punks me off and gets away with it!” I told myself. I guess you could label me a troublemaker in that I refuse to let some things go but this chick had definitely pushed the wrong button with me and so I called out to her and spoke my mind for all to hear. I had told her to hurry home so that her mother could teach her some manners and although I may have stumbled with a couple of my words, the fact that I said it all in Korean really proved definitely effective.

8. And with that, I slapped down some coins for bus money and left without paying for my hair cut. The manager came to apologize to me when I was walking down the stairs but I kept on walking. I was just so shocked. 98% of Koreans in Korea are super nice but today I had the luck of the draw of running into the two percent of sour duds. The only other time I have ever been treated like this in Korea was a couple of years ago when a car full of guys at a local stop light insisted that I was a Russian prostitute... hence why I now have black hair.

9. Had the joy of escorting some random Korean lady to a restaurant today and by random I mean I’ve never met her prior to her asking me where a good restaurant was. And I say “had the joy” because I love it when Koreans come up to me and ask me questions in Korean like I should understand because the fact of the matter is I should understand. After living in Korea for over 4 years my Korean should be great, and at times (like earlier on today) I think it is. But my point is, I love it when I don’t get that Oh-don’t-ask-her-she’s-a-foreigner look. For the most part, Koreans don’t expect foreigners to speak Korean but they always love it when we throw some Korean words into a conversation. I particularly love it though when I’m not talked to like a foreigner and instead are simply talked to like a person, like I might understand what they’re saying so they give me a shot.

10. As if I didn’t have enough practice with my Korean today, today I trained alone at the boxing club but two young guys came by to check it out. Their first reaction was to apologize and turn back down the stairs but I insisted they come in. They gave me one of those I-don’t-speak-English-so-this-is-awkward looks and so I started to explain to them the rules and whatnot about the club, in Korean. Must admit, I was rather proud of myself. All my hard work and slaving away every single day at my Korean studies definitely paid of today and it felt great. And so, because of it, I spent my whole evening studying Korean.

QUESTION OF THE DAY...
Why do some people have to spoil things for the rest of us?

QUOTE OF THE DAY...
You punch me, I punch back. I do not believe it's good for ones self-respect to be a punching bag.
-- Edward Koch