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Boy, I’m really gettin’ into this Prodigy CD. Some of the lyrics suck eggs, but it sounds good.
Call me Dr. H, Subway Anthropologist.
I get on the train at Ulchiro-sam-ga. It’s my good fortune to plunk down onto a free seat before even the swiftest of ajumas. I stake my claim. I’m planted. Next stop: A chubby middle-aged woman, well-dressed, rushes on with grandkid in tow. Drafting her is presumably her daughter-in-law (or just plain daughter) with another grandkid. All four of them are chubby.
It just happens that my claimed seat is adjacent to two guys who feel like displaying their crotches. Their legs rest in wide V’s, framing the important region, but hoarding precious sitting space. Neither of the guys budge for the chubby lady, but when she starts directing grandkid A to squeeze in between me and the sprawling V on the right, both guys narrow their respective angles a bit for the kid to fit. Aha! But this was just a ploy, because given an inch, this chubby lady took a mile. I scooched just in time to avoid one half of this lady’s cheeks in my lap. Instead I just got one plump elbow in the chest.
I can see her out of the corner of my eye giving me looks. I figure she’s wanting me to get outta the way so her daughter or her grandkids can sit too. Not a chance! This was my rightfully claimed space and this chubby woman was fit enough to stand, so if she really wanted a space for her grandkids, she could give up hers. I pretended to be oblivious and listening to music. Just to make sure she knew that, I maintained a steady gaze forward.
In that gaze, my attention focused on a little girl with unusual eyes. They looked round and had a deep crease across the lid. They didn’t look Korean. At first I thought she’d had some kind of surgery, and then I thought she looked remarkably like starving kids in those photos coming out of North Korea. Noticing the rest of her, I could see that she was terribly thin; her face was gaunt and I could see big blue veins in her pencil-thin ankles. She was with her brother, also thin, and an older sister who was very, very thin and wearing pants that were so large for her she had to hold them around the waist. All three looked like they hadn’t showered in days, nor had their clothes been laundered recently. I think they are malnourished. Their mom (I guess it was their mom) was dressed nicely, but I could see that her clothes were cheap. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, which is unusual, and her hands and face looked weathered.
The three kids were playing with marbles.
My attention is drawn back to chubby lady who feels compelled to make my trip hell by unbuttoning her shirt and jabbing me with her elbows. She hoists grandkid A onto her lap and he begins to kick me in the leg. Her daughter, with grandkid B, stands nearby. Grandkid B is maybe 3 and he’s sportin’ jeans, a striped shirt, really clunky kid-doc-marten rip-offs, and a baseball cap which he’s wearing backwards today. He sneezes four times in a row and chubby lady makes a fuss. Then grandkid B starts singing. Joy.
The little skinny girl across the aisle drops one of the marbles. Grandkid A on this side lunges off chubby lady’s lap, using my knee to push off, and gobbles up the marble before anyone can blink. Chubby lady praises him. Fetch boy! Fetch! Atta boy. (pat, pat).
Stops come and go and one by one the three kids across the aisle lose track of their marbles. One by one, either grandkid A or B snatches them up. With all the marbles stolen, eventually the three kids just drop the little plastic case they were using to keep the marbles in. In a flash, Grandkid B is on the scene and now he’s got a container in which to keep his new marbles.
The remainder of the trip, the three skinny poor kids covet their lost marbles, which are now in the hands of middle-class chubby lady’s grandkids. They stand or sit nearby watching and waiting for one marble to be dropped -please, please, please! - but none are. Neither chubby lady nor her daughter seem to care that the marbles really belonged to the other kids, and of course, neither one of them makes an effort to return the marbles to their rightful owners. The mom of the skinny kids looks tired and, anyway, she hasn’t been looking in the direction of the kids for most of the trip. If she’s aware of the lost property, she’s not interested in confronting chubby woman or her daughter. Or maybe she just doesn't care.
It’s my stop and observation ends.
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