Korean Job Discussion Forums

[The evil penguin]

Has anybody ever been in the situation where, through no fault of their own, they feel like some kind of creep... or maybe more accurately, worry that other people might THINK they are a creep.

As an unmarried male, 30, with no kids, i guess I'm a perfect 'potential suspect'.

Maybe its all this paranoia caused from the media and so on. But as a male, it can be uncomfortable sometimes..

What am i talking about?

Lunch time today. As my k-colleagues are allergic to foreigners, i generally spend my lunchtimes alone. Theres a park nearby, with a small pond filled with large carp. Nice place to sit and eat my bag of squid flavoured chips...throwing the occasional chip into the water to stir up the fish.

Sitting there today when two kids came up. I guess they saw the fish and wanted to look closer.. Ok, except they came up and stood directly in front of me... between me and the water.

Notwithstanding my annoyance at having my peace disrupted i then began to wonder what parent would let young kids play on the water edge with no supervision. The park was empty. Me, two kids and a fish pond.

Thats when i felt uncomfortable. What would the mother say if she came looking for her kids and saw some strange foreign man sitting no more than two metres away from them? Would she realise I was there first?

But no sign of mum. I'm hoping mum will come and call the kids so i can finish my lunch...... when the girl fell off the rock she was standing on. Luckily not into the water. The brother doesn't know what to do so runs away. Presumably to get mum. So now i have one bawling girl only a metre or so away and nobody else in the park.

If i walked away that would look supicious, if I stayed that would also. Picking up the kid and trying to help would look even worse.

So, i ate my lunch, ignored the bawling girl and waited for the mother to eventually show. Which she did, eventually, gave me a really dirty look, and finally took her charges away. Peace again.

Uncomfortable situation.

[alphakennyone]

Funny post. I probably would've done the same, except I might have put some space between me and the bawling child before sitting down and resuming my meal.

[PatrickBateman]

Toss some food at the child and pretend it's one of the exotic pigeons you see flying around here. If she's not receptive, then proceed to throw the food at her until she shuts up.

[MattAwesome]

next time say "way guh lay?" <--- means why did you do that? Romanized korean isnt accurate at all. 왜 그래? if you can read that.

if you speak 0 of the language, there isnt an easy out for you but dont forget to still be human.
maybe helping the girl? up and leaving would have been the best course of action.

[Oreovictim]

Whenever I think of little kids being scared of the big, bad foreigner, I think of this scene from Return of the Dragon. Bruce Lee's trying to communicate to the kid that he's hungry. (3:45)

There's also a good staring-at-the-foreigner scene at 2:38.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KYU-nmitWE

[IlIlNine]

Um? What you did was little creepy, wasn't it?

I mean, back home what would you do? I would ask the girl where her mother is and see if I can find anyone to help. The girl probably knows her mother's phone number, so you could always ask her for that, call her mom, and explain the situation, then wait with her for the mom to come.

I don't know, perhaps you're projecting, but I wouldn't presume that far. Needless to say, leaning Korean would help with situations like the one you just mentioned or with getting along with your coworkers or whathaveyou.

[IlIlNine]

[beercanman]

My belief is that "pedophobia" is rampant and insane (thanks media, TV, movies, and gullibility) in the western world and nearly nonexistent in many Asian countries. Maybe not true, but it seems like it to me. The "dirty look" probably had nothing to do with anything other than your strange foreignness. We get dirty looks sometimes for no reason other than being different I guess.