Well, I've never felt more like a celebrity than I do here. Or a sideshow freak, I haven't quite decided yet. Daejeon is a city of over a million people, but there aren't a lot of tourists that come through, so white faces are pretty rare, and we stand out a bit! I get stared at a lot, by everyone: kids, adults, seniors, it doesn't matter, we're different, but we all look the same! We were walking into a store today, past a group of school kids, and one of them actually gasped out loud, and then wanted to touch us!
A favourite game among school kids here is to choose one person out of a group to say "Hello" as they walk by. So we respond with "Hello" back and they laugh and laugh and run away. The staff from my hogwan (private lesson school) were also on tv on Saturday, hocking other people's wares at a flea market. It was actually a ploy to advertise a traveller's and teacher's market that they are trying to start, but they had us calling out to people, showing off the stuff (old Korean books, used clothes, and t-shirts with endangered fish) and making sales to all the market go-ers. The problem was, people didn't come look at our table, because it was 5 white people being forced to speak English, trying to sell junk! The Korean workers at our school were cajouling people to come over and at least pretend to be buying stuff, but the one time David reached out to a girl, she screamed and ran away! They sure did stand back and take pictures though!! I'm pretty sure we made it into at least a dozen photo shoots, and not just the camera man from TV, no, just regular people out to explore the flea market on a Saturday afternoon, in shock that a bunch of "weygugen" (foreigners) were manning a booth.
On the plus side, it doesn't really matter what we wear, and to a lesser extend how we act in public... we're white and therefore they automatically think we're just a little bit off. At least the pressure's off there!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Yeah, when I was five years old, all white people looked the same to me... well actually, I could tell the men apart from the women. So in my world when I was five, I thought there were only two white people in the universe. Dose that shed some light on why they look at you like you are one of the wonders of the world?
So glad that you have a blog! Keep posting :)
When we went to China and Hong Kong, one of the ladies at the docks actually called me a "Hello" to her friend on the phone. Karl translated later that she had said (describing us to the driver that was to pick us up later), "The man is Chinese and the woman is a 'Hello.'" Too funny eh?
Hey Laura, great to hear your stories, keep 'em coming when you have time. Hope you're not starving (or eating dog biscuits for supper). ~M
Post a Comment