Last night, after dinner I decided to take a walk around Seoul to buy a few things and hopefully find some bed sheets. No success with the bed sheets, but I did find some hair products for curly hair and was handed loads of sample beauty products, just for purchasing some conditioner.
I was getting a bit tired but I figured I'd walk further just see what the night time shopping was like. It was so odd seeing people going in and out of fashion stores at 9pm. I walked until I got to an area of Seoul where there weren't many stores, but rather loads and load of street food carts. I stopped to dig out my map and realized I'd forgotten it, which is fine, I'm horrible with maps as it is. I walked past a street cart where an old man was cleaning his grill. He glared at me the whole time, his eyes never leaving me. He didn't seem curious about me, but very displeased. I smiled and kept walking.
Suddenly I felt a splash of warm water on my back. He had thrown the bucket he was using to clean his grill on me and the men standing around him were laughing. This was one of those moments where I was entirely too conflicted about what to do. I stood still for a moment and it took everything in my body not to hit that man. I walked up to him slowly, looked him dead in the eyes and told him he should be very careful about being disrespectful to people he doesn't know. I raised my voice, even though I knew he had no idea what I was saying. I wanted to make him understand.
Right before anything escalasted too much, a young man came running from across the street and began yelling at him. The older man conceded and walked away. Turns out the the young man spoke English and was studying at Universty in Seoul. He apologized and said the man was prejudice, put his arms around me and walked me away from the area.He said I had been in a pretty dodgy part of Seoul. I thanked him, wrung out my shirt (which was white and a bit see through at this point) and he gave me his phone number along with his zip up to walk home in. In moments of frustration it is so comforting to meet such nice people. My exerience in Korea, with the exception of this incident, has been so positive that I have to remain optimistic.
Wow, I am so sorry that happened to you, Maggie. :/ It was really nice of that student to help you out, though. So far my experience with Koreans has been positive; I haven't experienced any xenophobia (although I am not naive enough to think it won't happen). I hope that this is an isolated incident and that the people you meet in the future will be much more open-minded and friendly.
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