Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Old Gil]

There used to be a rather plump homeless guy in Hongdae. I saw him a few times and every time he'd get up off his cardboard shove his way thru the crowd and try to hit me. I finally told him to 꺼져 and he got the picture.

[curiousaboutkorea]

[Suwon Sister]

It was bad for me during the U.S. beef protests a few years ago. Random ajosshis would start yelling at me as I waited to cross streets. One guy tried to run into me with his bike.

This was in Suwon.

[sokobobbie]

Only today did I hold the lift for someone at EMart in Star City to have him scream when the doors closed, punch the open button and run out. Doesn't affect me anymore other than making the day a little less normal, I guess you have odd ones in every city.

[Weigookin74]

Yeah, probably.

[Tundra_Creature]

I wasn't a weirdo magnet in Korea, but I do seem to be one back home. It's not an everyday thing thankfully, but it happens often enough.

As a teenager, it used to be just by middle-aged drunken guys (western adjosshis?) hoping that a young cashier would go back to their place. This was in a grocery store.

Being in the city now, I'd say most of my weird enounters do happen on either subways or buses (sometimes just walking down the street). One guy just started ranting to me in a weird mixture of French and Italian/Spanish. I only understand French.

I also had a guy ask me if I wanted to be his girlfriend. This was right after he asked me where a paticular store was.
"Do you know where the ____ is?"
"Sorry, no I don't."
"Oh. Do you want to be my girlfriend?"

While it was odd, he at least took it very nicely. I kindly said no and he shrugged and went on his way.

I've also had a similar situation as curiousaboutkorea. There's a guy in the neighbourhood who lives with his brother, and he talks to himself. I am pretty certain that he does hear voices, since he tells jokes to a person who doesn't seem to exist and they tell him jokes back. He seems to be a pretty nice guy though. I've never seen him violent, but he did used to want to know my apartment number, but eventually gave up.

There are a number of others, but you get the point.

Korea, I was pretty lucky. The most of the folks who approached me did so when I looked lost, or wanted me to join their church.

[peppermint]

I used to be one, though it dropped off after my first year or two in Korea. I suspect it's got something to do with an air of approachability about you.

[crossmr]

I've never been attacked. I've had plenty of people talk to me.
Mostly sober and friendly. A couple of drunk guys, a young guy just last night. He was friendly. He said my success was his success we were same same, gave me a drunken fist bump and then stumbled off at his stop.
I've had the odd special needs person talk to me. I did have one who seemed to speak english well. At least a couple sentences. Another one spoke to me in Korean. They were usually very short conversations before they wandered off. I've often wondered about autistic koreans and english. Special needs kids seem more exposed to regular curriculum than back home, so I'm curious what kind of language learning ability an autistic kid thrown into a regular english class might show. apparently quite a bit: http://hilarymccoll.co.uk/autismMFL.html

The only idiot/creepy one was the guy in emart who accosted me and wanted to come to my apartment with his nose hair to use my computer because he thought I'd just drop everything and help him immigrate to Canada that moment.

[Forward Observer]

Wow. Lemon, voice of reason, nice to see you again. Wish you were still running the show.

My guard always goes up on subways and crowded areas. I guess vibes do count for something though. The last weirdo that I encountered on the train stomped on my foot for no reason, I guess he thought I was stepping on him, even though I wasn't. Or maybe it was because Obama was in Seoul that day, who knows?

On another note, are you keeping to yourself when you ride the trains, or are you looking around at everyone? It helps to keep your head down (in a book or newspaper) and not look around too much.

I'm not in Korea right now, but if I was, I'd buy you that beer I promised back in 2003 when you hosted my avatar on your server. I miss you man...

[redaxe]

I seem to attract a lot of weird high school girls in Korea. They find me on the internet and then they want to have language exchangey at my house.

[mateomiguel]

[catman]

[thomas pars]

A few months back i head into the Dunkin Donuts in Bucheon. Right away I noticed this big mentally retarded girl, snot running down the lower half
of her face...her using her sleeves to wipe it up. Oddly enough she's dressed in a high school uniform. She sees me and makes a B line directly to me.
She grabs me. Throws her arm around me and says.
"OH MY GOD! I LUB YOU! I LUB YOU!

There were many many people in the place. And of course they all stopped what they were doing to watch this spectacle. I was finally rescued by the cashier who cam over to pry the girl off of me.

[ashland]

[The Lemon]