Monday 22 November 2010

On Being Different

On Saturday we went to Home Plus. We went to the drinks aisle. There was  another woman in the aisle, with her little girl in the trolley. The child was probably about a year old. Whilst innocently looking for orange juice, this woman caught our attention and said to us, in broken English, "she's afraid of foreigners," gesturing to her daughter. Indeed, the little girl was staring at us worriedly. It was true. But why did she tell us this?

On Sunday we went to the butcher's in search of a chunk of meat to roast. It took a while, mostly because we couldn't figure out how to say that we wanted to spend so much money and what could they give us for that price. They kept putting various things on the scales and pointing to the number, and offering us discounts but not very clearly (so was the price they just showed us already discounted, or would they take half off?), and complimenting Tom (with some surprise, amusingly) on his beautiful girlfriend - and eventually we walked away with just over a kilogram of pork which cooked beautifully.

Living in Korea can be a challenge, but there are also times when life is more fun when you're communicating through pointing and gesturing.

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