The Tale of the Longest Bus Ride EVER...

Those who are close to me would call it inevitable, while I will just settle for the term "mind-blowing."

So I usually find myself largely ignoring old Korean men, as their stoic and perpetually angry expressions are extremely off-putting, if not completely intimidating altogether. Generally speaking, they are just not very happy/active individuals.. (Although there was that one time, when, after having slept for a mere 3 hours before having to work at an event outdoors, I decided to take a quick nap whilst walking through the park--Hey, it's called multi-tasking!--and upon opening my eyes I saw an old Korean male riding a UNICYCLE off in the distance. (How he was able to obtain a real-life, uber-fun unicycle in a country where the general populous doesn't have time to enjoy life I shall never know.)  I nearly tripped over my own two feet out of shock and utter confusion. And then I laughed hysterically (maybe it was the extreme fatigue??) until he disappeared out of the park. Priceless.) That being said, they usually don't bother me, aside from the routine stares that I get from either being A) non-Korean, B) not white, or C) all of the above. So everybody's happy! Or not...

I don't know whether or not the price of tea in China has changed (Ha! Such a stupid phrase..But alas, I love it. Sigh.), but for some reason these "adjosshis" (as old Korean men are referred to here) have suddenly taken an extreme interest in my existence??

 So I'm on one of the last buses coming back to my area on a week-night. As I am so entranced by my music (so as to remain awake and to keep my mind off the length of the bus ride), I do not notice the fact that all the people have gotten off, and I am the only passenger left until the bus abruptly stops and I hear the bus driver (also an adjosshi) yell something to me. So I look around, apologize, and quickly exit the bus VERY confused, as this bus was supposed to take me to my final destination, but whatever. So upon exiting the bus and seeing legions of Korean teenage boys dressed in school uniforms (it had to be after 10:30 at this point), I realized that I was at a bus station of some sort. Luckily for me, other buses were departing, so all that I had to do was chase the next one (Literally, as buses do not stop unless they are flagged down and chased. Silly people who actually WANT to ride buses!) and hop on. As it was at it's point of origin, it was refreshingly empty, and I resumed listening to my music and getting mentally prepared to the long ride ahead. After remaining relatively empty, a few stops later a group of people boarded. Anticipating the need for seats, I moved my bag into my lap from the seat next to me. Whhhhyy 'o whhhyyyy did I do that??? A few seconds later, out of the corner of my eye I observed an old man who was walking down the aisle take notice of me, and then sprint toward the seat next to me. SO I just turned up my music and proceeded to ignore his existence, as is common. (Again, Koreans=not bubbly individuals.) Imagine my surprise when he began to scoot closer and closer to me. I instinctively moved closer and closer to the window each time, until there was no room left and I realized that whatever was happening was no coincidence. So as I continued to ignore him, he starts poking me in my arm/side to get my attention. Annoyed at being poked, I look up to see him smiling (scary, given that they.don't.smile.ever. I'm pretty sure that he even had a gold tooth in the back, too!?) and pointing to his business card, which has magically appeared in his hands. I smile politely and take the card (using TWO hands of course, so as not to offend), and then nod slightly to show respect. After pretending to read/take interest in what it says (actually it was mostly written in English?? Something about being a wedding planner? Huh???), I start to put the card in my bag. He then, grabs my hand and attempts to speak English to me using a series of random verbs and pantomiming. Since I somehow understand him, I nod in agreement. He then resorts to Korean to ask me about going on a date with him, eating, drinking ("a little"--his exact words--which is also a complete lie. After attending a festival a while back, I noticed that the pamphlet said, "You think you drink like fish?? Well, Korean drink like WHALE!!" No arguing that!), and seeing a movie (I think?? maybe I'm getting him confused with another one from yet another bus...). (Side note: these are the same people who are known to openly insult white men who are even walking with Korean women. Koreans will tell you that they are "one race," and they are doing everything in their power--especially the old men--to main that distinction! Keep that in mind.) It's then that I realize his motives, and pretend not to have understood any of his requests. I smile politely and turn back around to face the window. I then feel him vigorously patting the left area of my chest (The fact that I'm a girl makes it a wee bit more than that.) with one hand and touching my knee with the other. Mortified, I turn around and push his hand away. "What are you doing? Don't do that" I tell him, but he is so excited to talk that after stopping, he resumes, only this timely slower, and even more child-like. He's now telling me that he is happy to meet me and that he works with people who are getting married. Again, trying not to be rude, I tell him, in Korean, "don't do that" and wave his hand away. I look around the bus and there are only a few, nearly life-less bodies scattered around, all collectively engulfed in their perpetual tiredness. (Not that they would've cared anyway. He's a king an old man, he gets do do whatever he so chooses, be it "right" or "wrong.") At this point I'm annoyed AND exhausted, so I simply pretend not to understand that he's telling (Asking? Yeah right!) me to call him at that moment so that he can have my number, (of course I do no such thing) and that he will be waiting for my call the next day for our "date." Sir, as far as I'm concerned, we've already had one, which ended with you making it all the way to second base, thank you very little!!! Thanking GOD that my stop is finally approaching, I go to push the button and realize that he's waving good-bye. Nice. After nearly an hour on this bus from one part of the city to the next, it's revealed that he will also be getting off at my stop. Perfect! Thinking quickly, I hang back and wait for him to get off the bus, all the while making phone gestures with his hands. "Call!" he demands.

And yet again, no tip.



(I sprint to my apartment, relieved that I'm off that bus and away from the old Korean man with the gold molar who will be awaiting my call the next day. I chuckle at my luck, not realizing that two not dissimilar situations were about to happen to me again on two different buses a mere two days later...Yiiiiiikkees...)

The quest for "High Nose, Big Eye, Small Face"

Koreans are surprisingly vain; there's no question about it. More so than Americans (and I didn't think it could get any worse than America...) Given their reputation of having one of the best education systems in the world (no comment!!), I naturally assumed that the focal point of their lives would be education. Ha! Boy was I wrong!

You see, while high academic achievement is important (to the extent that it sets you up to be able to make the most money possible--and Koreans LOVE money!), I would argue that physical appearance is even more important. Nearly all of the students carry around mirrors the size of their heads (no exaggeration), and even larger, full-body mirrors can be found everywhere from the hallways to the principal's office. (Oh, and don't forget the public restrooms, where there are mirrors in each individual stall, placed strategically at the eye level of the person sitting on the toilet at the moment. You're on your own if you want hand soap, though...)

So it comes as no surprise that while teaching teenagers, and working around women, the topic of "beauty" comes up on a daily basis. As the students are applying whitening cream to their faces and using toothpick-like devices to poke their eyelids into forming what Koreans refer to as "double" (i.e. Western-looking) eyelids (Well, the ones who haven't yet had the surgical procedure done. After we returned from our first holiday break of the year, I was shocked to see all of the students who were still wearing surgical tape around their eyes, apparently having taken advantage of their break from school to have their eyes done.), they always tell me how much they adore big eyes, "S-line" body shapes, and small faces. (I'm starting to think that this "big eye" obsession has become a little too extreme, as all of the female news anchors--and some actresses, who, I'm told, would not be taken seriously by their fans without it--have gotten so much of the skin around their eyes cut off that they look like real-life Anime characters, just plain freakish.) As far as the "small face" goes, there are ample billboards advertising plastic surgery procedures that involve chopping off pieces of the jaw and cutting it into a more slender, rounded chin, complete with before and after pictures! Nose and breast jobs are no big deal--only a few thousand dollars and a few stitches, and voila, you're set for life!

The men want to be beautiful too. My neighbor casually told me about his male friends' seemingly unnecessary procedures, from nose jobs, to chin jobs, to space-between-the-nose-and-upper-lip jobs, along with his father's use of special shoes to look taller (Hilarious, considering that this is a place where you have to remove your shoes constantly in public places. When I mentioned why this very fact might pose a slight problem to his father's ingenious plan, he told me that his father's strategy is to always be the last person in the group to take off his shoes before entering a building, and the first person to put them back on on the way out, even if it means that he has to drastically shorten his time to eat or handle business.), and the fact that many Korean men routinely go to beauty salons to have their hair permed. (He also spoke nonchalantly about all of his mother's voluntary surgical procedures, which was a little odd, given that he told me that she had also had to have very necessary surgery to remove cancer from some part of her body. How does that even work??)

Back to my point about being "set for life." Again, in a place where it's common for students to go to school from 8:30am to 10:00pm (and then study at private academies until midnight), and the government just recently made it illegal to have school on Saturdays (Though there are many ways around this, with the most common being to simply lengthen the school year and shorten holiday breaks. Calling Saturday school "optional" also helps.), not only do you have to include a professionally-taken photo of yourself on your resume, but most people attach pictures that look NOTHING like their actual faces?! Yep. I believe they call it "photoshop." Every.single.picture is photoshopped here. Resume pictures, social networking site pictures--even family photos! After having to have some pictures taken for my official documents here, I was floored to discover that the very well-meaning photographer had even photoshopped the pictures of me?!? When I pointed out to my co-teacher the fact that my eyes weren't quite as large as in the picture (He even added a cartoon-like twinkle to my eyes. A TWINKLE.), and that my skin wasn't exactly so flawless and creamy, she nodded with satisfaction and simply said, "More beautiful."

I am told that I am lucky that photographs aren't required on my domestic resume, because in Korea, employers are only interested in hiring beautiful people.

By the looks of it, the word "beautiful" is a pretty euphemism for people whose facial features are "not ethnically Korean."