Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Coffee in Bokjeong... or not

I had a pretty hilarious encounter on the subway yesterday.  This guy was standing next to me and struck up a conversation (of sorts) by pointing to my MP3 player and enquiring "music?" The obvious answer was "yes"... he then repeated several times before I understood him through his accent and all the background noise: "America?" No, I replied, Canada. "Pretty" was his next remark (spoken while indicating my person), to which I responded with a mildly embarrased "ah, thank you." It was around this point that he started trying to talk to me in Korean, which was unsuccessful for obvious reasons, but it seemed as though his English vocabulary was running out. At length he recalled "teachah?", "Engrish teachah?" and "high school?" so that kept the conversation going for a little longer and afforded him the opportunity to point at himself and say "no Engrish" - which I had already kind of gathered. :) Then he pointed at my coffee and said "kah-pi" and I was like "yeah... it's coffee...?" He made sipping motions and I hoped he wasn't asking for a sip because I didn't really feel like giving him one. Haha. That seemed to be all about coffee for the time being. Moments later, he inquired "age-ee?" while brushing my hand - I guess that was so I wouldn't get confused and tell him someone ELSE's age but it didn't seem entirely necessary... haha. I told him I was 25 (which I am, over here) and he said he was 35. (It occurred to me to wonder whether that might possibly be an underestimate but I let it pass.) At this point he reintroduced the coffee theme, saying "kah-pi... Bokjeong..." repeatedly while pointing back and forth from me to himself (he had already asked me "station?" so he knew Bokjeong was where I was getting off.) The only conclusion I could draw was that he wanted me to have coffee with him in Bokjeong. Aside from the fact that I'd just finished one, my purpose in going to Bokjeong was to transfer to the pink line and go meet my friend Jenny, which I tried to explain to him but he had no idea what I was saying. He seemed to understand that I was declining his offer though (at any rate, he didn't follow me off the train...) but he bore me no visible ill will and we parted amicably. :)

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