I always walk to the bus station after work. It gives me 20 minutes of exercise after a long day, and it's a nice walk. I can either walk along a stream and then cut up along a large busy street, or walk along the stream for a third, up a street for a third, and cut through the park for a third. Yesterday, I decided to do the park way.
So, I was walking through the park when a group of young boys playing in an adjoining playground saw me. They started hollering "hello, how are you, my name is blah blah blah". This isn't abnormal for my city, as westerners like myself are fairly uncommon. Usually, if a child is polite and close, I'll either smile, nod, and / or respond in English. One thing I won't do is scream across a park. So I ignored them and kept walking, bypassing an old man who was dragging a metal cane on the brick, making a wince-worthy sound.
They kept up the screaming, which turned into quite rude Korean: "Word for for a woman's genitalia that sounds like 18 in Korean", "dog-baby", "fool" and other things besides.
What does one do in a situation like that? There are various responses I considered. Eventually I decided to do the one I felt was appropriate for the situation: I walked away, ignoring the insults just as I had ignored the English, not even pretending to notice. Was it correct? I don't know. Maybe I should have responded with verbal violence, using my own set of bad words? Or thrown rocks at them, as one student advised?. (Another student told me I should have beaten them up and taken their clothes and money, lol.)
But that's not me. Maybe it should be me, but it's not. So, I walked away and hoped they would learn wisdom as they grew up. Then again, a rotten child frequently grows into a rotten adult. So who knows? Sometimes, there are no good answers.
Unless my path took me into contact with the kids I would do what you did. Ignore them. If our paths crossed, I would probably grease them out in Korean.
ReplyDeleteOne of the reasons I don't like to go walking around in Korea is instances like this. Unfortunately it isn't limited to kids. Adults in Korea can be just as rude and obnoxious. Sometimes worse. Especially when you take in the fact that they are adults and should know better.
I blame their parents. It is rare that you see Korean parents correct their children when they behave badly, unless of course it would cause the parent to lose face. Especially when it comes to making comments to or about foreigners. We just don't seem to count. Then you have the way many adults act, badly, and the kids emulate it.