Say Cheese!

Even after this long in Korea it still boggles me how much people stare at foreigners. And it isn't the type of staring where you kinda look and then look away and then coyle look back as though you are actually trying to look at something else; it is flat out, bugged-eye staring. I'm not really complaining about it, I just find it interesting because I could only imagine what it would be like if I were on the GO train at home and there was a person of a different race and I stared at them for endless time and practiced saying hello to them in whatever language was supposed to be their native language. I'm pretty sure I would either be stabbed, arrested or threatened with my life.

Yesterday a group of us were out for coffee at Holly's, which is pretty much just like Starbucks only they feature a sweet potato latte (ymmmmmm... just can't bring myself to try that one). Anyhow our table was by a window that looked out into the mall and the kids would walk by in groups and then notice us and start shouting to their friends and pointing and then as they walked by the entrance to the coffee shop they would shout various things like "Hello," "How are you?" "Where you are from?" (no that wasn't a typo)and this is totally common and acceptable to all others around.

On the upside of this, to most Koreans different also equals exotic or beautiful, even to the little kids and I get told at least 2 or 3 times a day that I am so pretty or so beautiful (which I guess now is a good time to point out that I expect all of you to keep up with this at home ;) So there is upside to all the staring because even though I know they say it to everyone and it doesn't mean much, who doesn't love hearing things like that??

Anyhow last night we were out at the bar and this guy comes up and says "You so beautiful, I can take your picture?" And I said No. And he was like "Oh, okay, thank you." Then he went back to his friends and pulled out his phone, which I'm pretty sure was probably him taking my picture with his camera phone. But this is so common, especially if there is a bunch of us out you see people holding up their camera phones all the time, so there are probably countless random awful photos of me out there all over the place being that I am the least photogenic person in the world. But the even better part of all this is imagining what the photographers are telling their friends when they show off these pictures of foreigners. Like are they just saying, "And this is a foreigner I saw on the street." Because I think someone should try doing that in Toronto to a foreigner and see how well that goes over.