Random acts of kindness, Korean style...and some random randomness...

I have blogged about the good and the bad of Korea, when it comes to seeing it through the green-blue eyes of a foreigner. I have said before that the mountain of good stuff that happens to you as a foreigner far outweighs the handful of negative experiences, usually the result of being on the receiving end of racism.

Well, yesterday, I think the coolest thing happened. After dinner I went to the local Lotte Mart to steal me some internets. The whole reason for being there was good, one of my students came up to me at lunch time and asked me to help her with her script for some English speech contest she's entering. Naturally I was excited that one of my students is taking such an interest in English and agreed to help her, but the school's ancient computers couldn't open her new docx file. Since she's pressed for time and converting it to something the school's computer could read the next day wasn't an option, I told her to just send it to me in the body of an email when she gets home and I'll do it after work.

So, there I was in Lotte Mart, proofreading her script (which was very impressive!), when a middle-aged man came up to me and started talking. This happens quite often, and they usually keep going even after I tell them both in English and in Korean (and in body language) that I don't speak Korean. After a minute of this he left, and shortly after returned with an order of fries from the nearby KFC and walked away. I mean how cool is that? It was inexpensive, but the gesture is priceless. It felt really good to have something like this totally randomly happen to me. Maybe it was just the usual Korean kindness, maybe it was Karma paying me back for helping the girl out or maybe it was our time to be fed by the Koreans after filling their kids full of junk food on the weekend haha.

On our Wando trip on the weekend, a bunch of teens came up to us and talked while we were having our picnic, so we gave them a bag of chips to munch on...then, on the bus some elementary school students got on and we started chatting with them, and I offered one a potato stick or two...she took the whole bag. It was pretty cute, Korean kids are not bashful at all about accepting food. After she took it, though, she passed it around to her classmates and offered them all some munchies.

Anyway...even if I have a bad experience in Korea (which happens rarely), it's overshadowed very quickly by something good happening.

And now, for something completely different...let the randomness begin.

I think I'm getting a little too Korean. The other day all I bought from E-Mart (Korea's home-grown version of Wal Mart) was rice and a bottle of Chilsing Cider (think Korean Sprite or 7-Up)...

From Hyeopjae Beach on Jeju Island...panorama, clicky-clicky for big version :)

And another one....the white sand, blue sky and teal sea were amazing!

I was contemplating buying this just so I can ask people if they wanted to put my Dick Stick in their mouths...

That's about it...oh yeah, one last thing...I just got my invitation to my convocation today :( As much as I think those things are lame, I was really looking forward to it. It took me 11 years and a month to get my degree, I went through a lot of crap to have that piece of paper in my hands and I was actually looking forward to having a grand finale to the whole thing. Plus, I love Kamloops and any excuse for a road trip to ol' Loopy-loops is welcomed. It sucks missing out on stuff back home (in just over a month my friend Casey is getting hitched and I was really looking forward to that wedding too). On the bright side, instead of being at my convocation on June 10, I'll be on some beautiful beach in South Korea with my friend Mark from home...soooo it's not all bad!

Have a great day, everyone...talk to you soon!
T