Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Yu_Bum_suk]

So, following the idiot-mother-got-a-plane-grounded thread, I thought I'd poll everyone to find out what they really think is worse. And no, I'm not counting terrorists and stuff like that but the kinds of fellow passengers one commonly finds on an airplane.

[Leavingkorea]

Mine was the obese alcoholic who wouldn't stop talking. I was in business class so that helped some.

[oneofthesarahs]

Screaming baby. Most other sounds (including chattering people) can be tuned out or ignored by slapping on some headphones. But a screaming baby is right at that pitch that is IMPOSSIBLE to ignore, no matter how high the volume on your headphones is.

[eamo]

I've had two experiences of being seated near a guy who got completely drunk and abusive to anyone around him. Shouting for more drink. Swearing like a sailor with kids just staring in fear and incomprehension. Horrible.

One of those incidents became violent and four passengers had to hold this Scandinavian nutter down in his seat for two hours until the attendants finally got the restraints and lashed him to his seat. This was a Seoul to Frankfurt flight. The captain decided to get rid of this guy as soon as possible so he diverted to Helsinki where four HUGE Finnish cops came on and dragged him off kicking and screaming.

Think about it. About 1 in 10 people (guesstimate) are bad drunks. A long-haul flight could have up to 400 people on it. That's a lot of loose cannons ready to go off!!!

[indytrucks]

No poll option for the tw@t who sat next to me from Hong Kong to Johannesburg and wouldn't put his laptop away. Everytime I got up to use the toilet, he gave me a look like, "Can't you see I'm busy?" Idiot.

[Jizzo T. Clown]

I said "Obese Person." I'm not a small guy or anything, but sitting next to someone who occupies almost two seats is just downright unpleasant. And they usually stink too. Don't know what's up with that.

[Qinella]

Big people are a little bothersome, but if you can get used to being flesh-to-flesh with a stranger for a few hours it's not so bad. I once sat next to this dude who claimed to be an ex-linebacker for some NFL team. We took up about 40% of my seat's space. Very broad shoulders. On my other side was this Asia rat dude (western guy who dwells in Asia for a loooooong time) who didn't stop talking to the football player, talking across me, for almost the entire flight from US to Korea. By far, the talking trumped the space issue in discomfort.

[Newbie]

I voted for the Ajossi, but not for the eating problems. My vote is for the ajossi and ajumma who are leaving Korea for the first time and have no idea how civilized people behave. The pushing, the shouting, the hacking, the taking all the arm rests, the lack of listening, being loud, touching my things... all that crap.


Ahhh, this August I have a 14 hour flight from Seoul to Toronto. Straight. No place to unload the annoying Korean passengers. (not saying all Korean passengers are annoying)

[Woland]

[skconqueror]

I voted the screaming baby.. (please let me never be beside letty on a flight)

[Wondering]

Stinky people. I hate being seated next to stinky people. If it's just a little BO I can usually take it, but if they stink of cigarette smoke, I have to ask to be moved.

People, please bathe before boarding the airplane!

1. Obese people: as long as they don't stink, I've got no problem with them. Airlines tend to crank the A/C way to high in my opinion and I'm always cold. If someone is pressed up against me, I'm not so cold.

2. aviophobic: It's never happened, but I can't see that it'd bother me. I'd probably try to distract them and get them talking so that tyey aren't so afraid. I've got acrophobia, so I can understand people with irrational fears.

3. alcoholic who won't stop drinking: So long as he's being quiet about it and not passing out on me or vomiting on me, I've really got no problem. Never been on a plane where the attendants permit someone to drink enough to get that drunk. I'd certainly demand to be moved (or him moved) if he started to get touchy feely or anything like that.)

4. A chatterbox who can't shut up: They always end up regretting talking to me because I can interrupt and out-talk people to the point where they retreat into a book very easily. And if they don't shut up, then either I block them out or I just keep talking myself. Sometimes it's nice to just say every single thing on your mind and who cares if the other person is listening? It's not like I have to worry about offending them.

5. Screaming baby? I usually offer to hold the baby for awhile. Sometimes being around someone different surrpises them so much that they get quiet. Screaming kid? I play with them. I last longer than they do and once they finally fall asleep, they rarely wake up with the same excess energy. Parents traveling with children are going through a lot already and often a little bit of help can make such a huge difference for them. *I* used to be a little kid passenger on international flights and my mom is still full of stories of kind strangers who helped out in some little way. THe man who didn't kill me for repeatedly kicking the back of his chair but understood that my legs really really hurt because they couldn't hang down or be pulled up properly and told my mother to stop scolding me for it. The man who let me stretch out to sleep by having my legs in his lap and my head on my mom's lap (my sister was sleeping on the floor) and never complained even though I was a squirmy sleeper back then). The various passengers who talked to us, told us stories, praised the pictures we colored...all of them helped to make the flight pleasant for everyone involved. Thanks to them, we grew up knowing some of the family members who lived across the Atlantic that we might not have otherwise. (Like an uncle, a dear sweet man who is petrified of flying and would never have gone to America.) Anyway, my mom told me enough stories for me to know that I owe these people a similar response to the children around me.
Also, having once flown with a raging cold, I understand COMPLETELY any pain that any screaming infant might be experiencing and feel so very sorry for them that I can't possibly be angry with them or their harried, worn-out, already embarrassed and wishing the plane would swallow them up parents.

6. A person who eats like a barnyard animal: I have issues eating around other people as it is, so even a person with the most delicate of manners is going to offend me. However, meal times do not last very long in comparison to the rest of the flight and I can always think to myself how lucky I am not to be related to or have to live with said people.

Some of my favorite seatmates over the years include:

a little boy who had just spent his summer visiting his family in India. He had the most incredible imagination and told the funniest stories. By the time I got off the plane, I'd picked up some of his accent which gave my family cause for amusement until it wore off again.

a 24 year old boy on his first flight ever, on his way to Japan with 20 of his friends, most of whom had also never before been on a plane. This was one of those GIANT Korean airline planes where even in coach, everyone had their own video screen with a large selection of movies, sit-coms, documentaries, etc to wach, computer games to play, music, list goes on and on. The boy and his travel companions were totally agog at it all and excitedly planned which movies to watch, bet each other on who would have the highest score, and really went nuts when they found out that they could place calls to each other's seats. They were just such bright-eyed shiny newbies that it was amusing even if it did make me feel a trifle elderly. Poor boy wore himself out with excitement within two hours of the flight and ended up sleeping nearly the entire way.

A man who never spoke even one word, not even when the airline attendant asked him which meal he wanted, but sat quietly either reading or sleeping and smelling faintly of peppermint for the duration of the flight. Let me have the arm-rest, motioning that the one he had on the aisle was more than enough. Was such a peaceful and relaxing flight.

A woman who asked me why I was traveling (on one of the many flights I had to taken within the States to actually make it all the way to my parents' house) and once she found out I taught in Korea, blasted me with lots of questions and was just so danged interested in what I had to say and impressed with my life in general that she made me feel like quite the international personna.

[Natalie]

Most interesting passenger to sit by quickly turned into the most annoying.

A devout Muslim man flying to Pakistan to marry a woman he'd never seen.

I'm interested in Islam so asked many questions about his faith etc, which resulted in him preaching AT me in a very loud and aggressive manner whenever I posed alternative possibilites for the Qaran (I studied Islam, know quite a bit).

And I was only posing options, not stating I was right etc.

sigh.

[JongnoGuru]

The absolute worst person I can imagine being seated next to would be an extremely sexy, funny, intelligent woman. Particularly if she and I hit it off, that would be just awful. A 10+ hour erection is cruel and unusual punishment. If it happened, I think I'd morph into "Annoying Passenger #3"...

[indytrucks]

[SuperHero]