Is It Because I's White?

So this week was Lee's Birthday! His 28th, according to us....his 30th, according to Korea. Eh? I hear you cry. Well, in Korea you are born aged 1. You then gain another year at the Lunar New Year (usually January or February)...meaning that a baby of 2 days old could be deemed 2 years old, just because of the month he was born. And seeing as Lee was a Christmas baby...he was 2 by the time he turned one month. So happy 30th Lee! He shouldn't worry. Age is a very important thing in Korea.....the older you are the more important you are, so really he's just been pushed up the importance hierarchy. And he's a man. Even more important then.

So to celebrate, we had a few drinks with friends in Bucheon, the university city 15 minutes away from us. Ice-cream cake, cocktails & beer later we headed outside to summon a taxi home. This should be easy. Should. But for some reason we always find it hard to get a cab from here. Driver after driver says 'aniyo' (no) when we open the car-door, or puts his arms up in a non-ambigious cross. We decided it must be the wrong place to get a taxi - wrong side of the road or something. So we headed to the taxi rank and stood behind a 20 person strong queue to wait for a taxi, in minus 12 temperates, I might add! Taxi pulls up, Korean gets in, taxi drives away. But as soon as we are the head of the queue, the first 4 or 5 taxis either drive straight past us to rejoin the back of the queue, or refuse to take us and let in a Korean instead. I realised.....Is It Because I's White?

I guess they're still getting used to our presence, especially living somehwere outside of Seoul, where the sighting of a westerner is still a surprise. And people are notoriously scared of what they don't know. I remember one class I had when the bell went and all the little kiddies started screaming and the Korean teacher explained it because they had never been left alone with a white person before. It's OK, I'm not that scary.....usually.... !

Actually sometimes it goes the other way too. Often us westerners get a better deal than the Koreans. Many festivals or tourism events give us westerners free tickets and queue jumps. Even our local, and beloved, bar VonTees has special orders to give any westerners free hot food on arrival. Is pretty handy sometimes, but I can't help but wonder how the local people feel about being seconded all the time.

Perhaps it would be nice, Korea, to ignore the fact that we're 'different'....we're not! We don't need the freebies, and we don't need the arms crossed 'aniyo' either.....let's just embrace the fact that Korea is becoming more culturally diverse, and enjoy what a wonderful country this is. And please please let me in the taxi when it's minus 12 outside.......