Stilletos made for walking

One of the things you can't help but notice in Korea is the fashion. There are a couple of trends, but the young women wear whatever they feel like throwing together, and invariably they look good. The result is that unlike America, you never see anyone in the same outfit. You also never see them out of their outfits. For me, fashion (or my approximation there-of) is reserved for getting dressed up for a night out on the town. For the women here, you are apparently not allowed to leave your house for any reason without your full fashion gear. This was truly driven home to me on Jeju. I was out climbing on rocks, balancing in streams, and walking long distances to catch all the sights, so naturally, I was in exercise clothes, sneakers, and a hat...and I was the one out of place. When I saw the first woman walking down a nature trail in heels, I thought, good grief her feet must hurt. When I saw a woman picking her way across stones in a stream at a waterfall in heels, I thought she was nuts. When I looked around and realized I was the only chick in sneakers, I thought well damn, if I could do all this in heels I'd wear them too. Really in the end, it was sort of impressive. I still maintain that even if they had the physical grace to navigate the outdoors in heels without falling, their feet must still be screaming.
Don't worry, I'm sticking with my tenny's.

The other thing that I really noticed was how diligent the older Korean women are about talking to you in Korean. I have to admit that when I'm in public, I sort of tune out because I don't understand anything. I was sitting in the airport reading a book when my brain registered that it had just heard the same phrase three times. I looked up, and there was this little ajimah next to me trying to talk to me! I was so flattered that she would try, but I of course gave her the hand signals and the embarrassed giggle indicating that I didn't understand her. It didn't bother her a bit. She just kept talking to me, and honestly after a while, I got the gist from some gestures and a few known words, and we had a little conversation about our vacations! Really I'm sure I just made everything up, and I'm pretty sure she did too. I also pulled a Brent and just nodded and answered yes to any question that was asked more than once. That seems to make people happy. Laugh when they do, smile a lot, and the nonconversation is pretty rewarding. I have had this experience several times here and always with the older women. They might be my favorite.

The teenaged Korean girls are another story. I'm pretty sure they dare each other to try to talk to us, which ends up with one girl running up and breathlessly speaking a couple of English words, and when we actually talk back to her she shrieks and runs to her friends amidst massive giggling. This, while annoying, is at least humorous. The other night they upped the ante though. I guess her friends dared her to try to touch the Americans or maybe to try to piss us off, I don't know. So I'm walking with my friend Margaret, and we try to pass this girl, but everytime we slow down or speed up, she does too and she keeps getting between us. Then she starts fumbling at my hand like she's going to hold it. So I move to touch her hand, and of course this results in the same shrieking giggling routine. At first I thought it was funny, but it made me feel like a bit of a freak to think that kids are daring each other to touch me. ah the endless entertainment of the mi-gook.

(Just in case anybody doesn't know and thinks I'm being derogatory, mi-gook is actually what Koreans call us, and it means American. They call themselves Han-gook. The term gook came around because when the Koreans first saw American soldiers, they called them mi-gooks: Americans. The soldiers thought the Koreans were identifying themselves in English: Me "gook" so they called the Koreans gooks, and that eventually became a slur.)