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It’s a slimy grey mess outside.
I met Dave in Insa-dong for tea, which was served in teeny cups making us pour repeatedly every few minutes. Didn’t like that; too much trouble for the benefit. Another couple in the tea house, middle-aged, were arguing over being on time. Seems the woman was late and her husband/lover/brother/whatever was lettin' her have it. She held her own, but didn't look up at him. Meanwhile, the guy, in between chastising blurps, did a serious beetlejuice to stare at us. Yell at the woman, whip around and glare, yell, glare.
Managed to get some X-mas shopping out of the way. The sad part is that we’ll spend the value of the gifts in postage. Dave was starving after our shopping spree so we decided to re-visit that tubu chongol place we discovered a month ago or so. It’s a long walk on a nice day, and a miserable one in the rain so we decided to catch a cab.
The cab driver, hearing Dave fling the local tongue, started confronting us with the usual questions. When he found out we were American he said, "IMF! America! America is very bad." Uh, yeah, whatever. Dave said that the IMF is an international agency but the man wouldn’t budge in his belief that America is forcing Korea to change it’s corrupt system just so Americans can get rich off of their little country. Later, I think we were redeemed a bit when he found out we didn’t live in a posh foreigner’s area but in apartments with Koreans on all sides.
At the tubu chongol place, the people weren’t much nicer. Didn’t say much, service was poor, etc. Most likely it was due to the fact that it was 3pm and in between meals. Probably, it was break time. Nevertheless, these days you never know what’s going on as anti-American sentiment is more fashionable than ever. On TV, warnings are issued periodically to alert Americans to the growing hostility toward America and Americans because of several recent events taking place around the world, and that everyone traveling or living abroad should be more careful than usual. And that's relevant because...?
I don’t feel very threatened. Maybe if I were in the Middle East. Mostly I just feel weird when I walk by a mob protesting American consumer capitalist imperialism. I feel like, at that moment passing by, I am the focus of all their chants as if I alone represent that huge nation. I think I’m going to start saying I’m from Canada or Australia.
After chowing on super spicy tubu chongol, we scurried over to the bus stop and waited in the pelting rain for 83-1. It came finally and we were lucky to plop down onto the back seat. The windows were steamed up making all of the neon lights look blurred and dull. Dave half-dozed most of the way home, while I listened to Peter Gabriel. Traffic was bad and the ride took more than an hour.
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