And We Thought Canadians Knew What Hospitality Means...

I’ve heard a lot horror stories about bus drivers and cabbies in Korea—mainly, that they just don’t give a crap and drive with reckless abandon. The night of our incident with little Ms. Good Samaritan, though, we happened to take a cab to the local go-to bar for foreigners, Sticky Fingers, and we got a ride from the sweetest cab driver I will likely ever encounter in my entire life.

For one thing, he complemented everybody in the car; the ladies were beautiful, and Obama was very handsome. We tried to return the kindness, but he simply smiled and waved it off with total humility. And you know he wasn't blowing smoke up our collective asses to score a tip, because as I mentioned before, people don't tip in Korea; the guy was just being super friendly and wanted to make us feel welcome in his home country, which happens all the time!

Then the dude started showing us pictures of his son! He was such a proud poppa. The ladies inquired as to whether his son had a boyfriend. More laughs were had all around.

Now it’s not that there aren’t kind and sociable people back home--I’ve encountered more than my share of friendly Canadians who were eager to help a stranger out and treat him with the utmost care--but it just seems to mean that much more when the kindness is directed towards a foreigner. Approaching a stranger with a smile is one thing, but to approach somebody who speaks an entirely different language with the same smile is flat out beautiful. And people do it here like it's second nature; it comes as natural as breathing and walking.

Take the lady at my bank, for example. The other day, my co-teacher took me to my bank after work in order to activate my account with my Alien Registration Card. We arrived there at exactly 6:01. Now first of all, the banks close for business at 4:00, at which point the doors shut and the employees just do paper work for the last two hours of their work day.

So technically, I arrived a minute after punching out time. But instead of shooing me away, this woman greeted me with a smile.

Once my account situation was taken care of, I pushed my luck and asked if it would at all be possible to convert this pesky American $50 bill that I'd been lugging around since the day I landed in Korea. (For some reason, when I first arrived at the airport in Seoul, the people at the exchange bank wouldn't accept this one particular bill because they claimed it was “too old.” No idea what that means, but I'd been carrying it around with me this whole time.) 

Note: I just realized I've been in Korea for an entire month. Whoa.

The woman told me that she couldn't convert it for me because the bank was now closed, but she would change it out of her own pocket and just convert it over for herself the following day. What a doll!

And then, because $50 American came to 52, 000 won and some change, she went around asking her co-workers if they had one more thousand won because she wanted to make sure she gave me the right amount, even though I told her I was fine with just the 50, 000.

Even before I landed in Korea, I've been experiencing the warmth of Korean people. When our plane was descending into Ulsan, we were reminded to fill out those pesky declaration forms. I didn't have a pen with me, so I couldn't do anything. Then the woman sitting beside me, who I'd had absolutely no communication with during the entire duration of our short flight from Seoul, reached into her purse to grab a pen for me without me uttering so much as a word in her direction. 

I know it's a very small act of kindness, but it struck a chord with me immediately, because of the fact that I didn't even have to ask. She reacted so quickly and without thinking. Like I said, it's second nature here. In a culture that is so seeped in etiquette, social hierarchy, and respect, making others feel welcome is just the proper thing to do! 

I even see it in my school. One day, I was walking down the hallway towards the cafeteria, and most of the other teachers had already left for lunch, so I was the only adult around. I noticed that one boy had a stream of blood rolling down his leg, and so I tried to explain to him that he should go to the washroom and clean himself up. He didn't understand, so I just waved him over and told him to follow me. 

Suddenly, a teacher came out of her classroom and was heading in our direction. Another boy who witnessed the whole exchange between myself and the bleeding student pointed at me and said in Korean that I am very Korean. And what exactly made me so Korean? Helping somebody out who was in need.