just another American teacher in SK

I’m getting used to the bus to Seoul.   The great thing is the departure schedule ~ there’s a bus every 20 minutes or so.   The bad thing is every bus is almost always FULL and you will generally have a seat-mate, which is always a crap shoot.   I’ve been lucky so far ~ no weirdos, no drunks, no space hogs ~ no worries.

Let me preface this little story but saying that Koreans love to share food ~ this is a communal-eating society. At the dining table, the main dishes are shared by everyone.   In the office, you bring enough for everyone.   It seems natural, then, to share while on the bus.  I’ve been offered something every time I ride the bus ~ from water to vitamin gum to squid snacks to … well, whatever it was that I was offered today.

I noticed this woman as we were boarding, as she was loading big boxes of stuff into the cargo area underneath the bus.   The last one to board, she was (of course) my seat-mate. Within a few minutes of departure, she starts chattering with me in Korean and produces a bag of food snack treasures that she wants to share with me.

An important social rule in Korea is to graciously accept whatever is offered to you ~ to not accept will cause the giver to “lose face”.  So, I graciously accepted a slab of dark green firm stuff.  It was really chewy, didn’t taste like anything, but I’m assuming (because of the color) that it was a combination of seaweed and … something.   Anyway, after I choked down my first piece, she insisted that I take another ~ I patted my stomach vigorously and tried to communicate that one delicious snack (yummy-yum) was plenty.   She seems disappointed, but proceeded to polish off  5 or 6  more of those bad boys on her own, tuck the rest away in her bag, and then fall asleep on my shoulder for the remainder of the trip.   Ordinarily, I would not be crazy about a stranger sleeping on me on the bus ~ but there was something so  weirdly sweet  about it.

Perhaps there was a sedative quality in those slabs of  green glob …   Whatever it is, she was content as she transported on the bus from Ganghwa.

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