Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Speck7]

I haven't witnessed too many weird things, maybe a mother holding her little kid's johnson while he pees on the sidewalk facing the street (and the bus I was on) as the traffic goes by.

You?

[catman]

Nothing too extreme. Toddlers urinating in plastic bags that their mother's are holding in the middle of a store is probably the worst.

[crescent]

My top 4 weird things of memory:

1. In the local underground shopping mall, I witnessed an 30-something woman walk up alongside and stop another woman of about the same age. The first woman introduced herself as a '역학공부" and said that she had noticed an aura of bad luck around the second woman and took the opportunity to chant some prayer to ward off the bad spirits. Then she asked for a donation. The second woman hesitated and then took a chunner out of her purse. The first woman said it wasn't enough to keep the bad spirits away and that there should be a more meaningful donation. So, the second woman took out two more chunners, only to get a scornful look of disgust form the first woman as she walked off.

2. Waiting for a bus outside of Costco, I sense something strange about this older guy sitting on the bench. As he turns his head, I see he has bright red lipstick on that is smudged over the edges of his lips. I look down and he has blue nail polish that's half worn off. He's dressed otherwise normally as a man and showed little signs of good grooming.

3. A few years ago, I saw two very young traffic cops approach an old man who just finished urinating against a post at the side of a busy road at about 3 in the afternoon. As the cops engaged the old man, he started flailing his arms and shouting obscenities. He then grabbed a billy-stick from one of the cops and started beating him with it. At first, both of the cops started to run away, but they clumsily regrouped and wrestled the old man down.

4. Last summer, i was walking along the riverside park and saw some old women playing go-stop under a bridge. On the other side of the bridge, I passed by one of the grandmothers who was crouching down about a meter from the wide-open pathway, with her pants at her ankles, urinating.

[wings]

Having a beer with my then boyfriend at a mart a woman approached us and said that she was a "mentalist" and asked if she could see my hand. Always in for a laugh I showed her my hand. She looked at the lines on my hand and told me " you are an English teacher (good guess) and your boyfriend has a very small *beep*". We laughed and said that no that wasn't true. She asked me to stand up so she could see how tall I was, when I stood up she grabbed my ass and tried to kiss me. My boyfriend and I burst out laughing and she left.

[optik404]

Was sitting at a bus stop and there was a shabbily dressed kid on the bench. He was maybe eight or ten. Two students around the same age as him in school uniforms walked by. The kid gets up, goes up to them and asks how much money do you have. One kid pulled out a 10K bill and the kid said something, took it and walked off. They just stand there and he says, my mom gave me that for lunch. Funny thing is, they probably could have whooped his ass, he was skinny and smaller than them. But the kid walked off like a gangster.

[KimchiNinja]

If I really think about it I could probably come up with something…but really Koreans are so normal, rarely ever see freaky weird things, unless it's Itaewon.

Now if we change the topic to the USA, man have I got some stories! I went down to get coffee one morning and there was a homeless and/or drug addict woman in the streets asking at the top of her lungs "can I have a quarter, I need to buy a tampon!!!!". And that's not even weird, for the USA, that's just any normal day in the city.

Koreans don't behave in that disgraceful uncouth way thankfully.

[Rutherford]

Saw a mother (40ish) with her kids at Haeundae beach wearing a thong bikini. This was a few years back when bikinis were rare.

[EZE]

Not the strangest thing, but it happened this evening so it's very fresh on my mind.

At least once a month, I like to stroll along the sidewalk at Jongno 3 ga on the exit 1 side to see if any of the dozens of jewelry shops have any interesting coins, since coin collecting is my favorite hobby. This evening, I was doing my thing when I sort of noticed an old lady on the sidewalk staring at me. I thought something was off about it, but my only two thoughts were that I guess I do look unique even for a foreigner, but to be extra vigilant about my wallet, since a person shopping for gold and who can't even communicate with police would be a logical target for pickpocketing.

When I made it to the corner just before the Jongmyo shrine, I turned around, since that's the last jewelry shop. There was the same granny walking in the same direction I had been walking. I avoided eye contact with her, but as I passed her, she went "Pssst!" I guess a mixture of curiosity and sympathy for the elderly caused me to stop and see what she needed. She asked, "Motel?" I thought she was homeless and was asking for money to get a motel room. I feel like I get scammed by too many people who ask for money, but it was so cold out there I figured I could at least give her a little just in case she was legitimately in need. So I asked her, "How much do you need?" She held up four fingers. I paused as I decided I would give her whatever blue notes were in my front pocket. Noticing my hesitation she said, "Sex."

So it ended up she was a streetwalker twice my age. As I turned around to leave, I noticed a guy standing still, watching us. I don't know if he was a curious bystander, her pimp, or a plainclothes policeman. It made me glad I didn't pull out any money. Perhaps it was a sting where I could've been arrested and deported for paying geriatric prostitutes.

[Oreovictim]

I used to live in Cheongju, and I was at some bar with a Korean friend and a foreign coworker. There were half a dozen Korean dudes on the other side of the bar who kept looking at us. They all looked like pretty sketchy characters; they might have been gang members or something. One of them comes into the bar, and then all of them approach us. The dude who just arrived reaches into his bag and pulls out . . . some ice cream from a nearby convenience store. We sat there with the gangsters, eating ice cream.


When I lived in Seoul, I was hanging out at Evan Records in COEX Mall. Suddenly, there were massive amounts of screaming and countless camera flashes. I walked outside the store and ask someone, "What's going on?" Some girl was pointing, yelling, "Big Bang! Big Bang!" The members were on stage for an interview, a fashion show, maybe they were opening up for Fingerbang (Featuring Randy Marsh); don't know, don't care. But I remember watching for about a total of 15 seconds and standing next to another foreigner who was as thrilled as I was. (Hint: not at all.)

[maitaidads]

A couple of years ago, I snuck into an abandoned love motel at the base of Walker Hill. All the furniture, phones, sheets, etc were intact from the lobby to the rooms, but they were all covered in a massive layer of dust.
I wanted some sort of souvenir, so I crept down the pitch black hallway and came to the last room, which was the only one to have the door closed. I thought something interesting might be in there, so I gathered my nerves and kicked in the door FBI-style.
I was immediately met with incoherent demon shrieking. I didn't even get a look at the person, but ran the length of the motel and jumped through the broken glass side door, taking out a few of the shards like a stuntman. Ran down the hill and didn't look back.

[mayorgc]

A male co-teacher used to beat kids as a form of punishment. He was old. Over 60 for sure. I guess he was told to stop beating kids by the higher ups (whacks to the ass or hand with a stick) cuz he found a new form of punishment for unruly kids. When a boy was misbehaving, he would ask them if they wanted a smack or a kiss. Someone actually chose the smooch so the male teacher puckered up and laid one right on the lips of the boy. Shrieks of "EEEWWWWW" shot up from the class. Quite gross.

[cj1976]

[crescent]

[cj1976]

One incident I saw was more amusing than weird. A portly ajossi parked his car on the pavement (totally illegally) and a passing traffic warden wrote up a ticket. Before he could put it on the car, said ajossi came trundling out of a restaurant and started hurling abuse. They then proceeded to start a bizarre shoving contest using their bellies. They looked like two fat schoolboys fighting over a cake.

[nate1983]