just another American teacher in SK

I could hear car horns blowing and people shouting as I approached the intersection ~ a middle-aged woman was practically dragging a crazy-legged man across the street.  The pair had clearly exceeded the 20-second pedestrian crossing  allotment, but I could see that the man was not drunk (which is, unfortunately, the first assumption), but quite severely crippled and dragging a cane.

There were at least 20 people waiting at the crosswalk ~ just staring.  Just watching and staring.

So, I dropped my umbrella (we are experiencing a downpour of heavy rain),  went out into the intersection, hoisted him up, and hauled him to the curb.  He was clearly terrified, not only by the traffic but also by the fact that he was being man-handled by some crazy foreign woman.   Thankfully, I ran into a Korean friend, who was able to assure him that we would take him to the clinic safely and accompanied us one block (15 minutes) to the clinic. The patients in the waiting area were probably pretty weirded out by the whole thing, but “Mr Crazy Legs” got where he needed to go.

When we returned to the crosswalk, the woman who had originally been assisting the man across the street was holding my umbrella and patiently waiting for our return. My Korean friend couldn’t figure out the whole situation ~ “Why would you do such a thing? You would be hurt!”

But if there is a person in need, don’t we all share some obligation to assist?

How can anyone just ignore a person who has an obviously need of assistance ~ the the ancient man hauling a cart up the hill, the crippled man stuck in a busy intersection?  How can you ignore a child (albeit, a student) that is clearly suffering physical or emotional pain?!

I just don’t get it!!

I just don’t get it …

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