Encounters on the Subway/You've been punked!/my phenotype is not my genotype

I've heard it said more than once that the subway brings New Yorkers together, that the subway is the posterchild for New York's diversity. Whether it's anything more than a posterchild for New York's diversity(and I don't think it is), is up for debate, but being in Seoul has certainly made me appreciate growing up in a place where the people I saw everyday didn't all look exactly like me--even if I didn't always interact with them.

Sunday June 18, 2006

We're a curious sight when we leave the apartment together. The cutest old Korean woman you can imagine walking hand-in-hand with a white foreigner who towers a foot above her. The curious take no care to hide their shock when we hug goodbye in front of the subway station and she plants damp kisses on both of my cheeks.

Earlier that day, before the hugs and kisses, we're lost in the Euljiro 3 Station, and ask a man for directions; a man who can't hold it in, asking--in an awkwardly failed attempt to be casual--what everyone else is thinking: "So...who is that boy with you?"

"My grandson," she answers as if that should be obvious.

He decides to walk us to our platform, probably more out of curiosity than desire to help.
"So, why are you in Korea?" he

asks in pretty-decent English.

"I'm studying Korean language here," I answer back in Korean.

"Wow, you speak Korean SO well," he exclaims--in Korean this time.

I've gotten used to the high praises I get for being able to produce anything that sounds like Korean. Koreans don't expect mush from someone who looks white. But, I haven't--and won't--get used to the looks that tell me that people think there's something incredibly odd about me and my hal muh n(grandmother).

Thursday June 22, 2006
We're on the subway platform, looking at a poster for Superman Returns as we wait for our train when he comes up to us.

"Do you know when that movie comes out?" he asks in Korean.

We look a little confused(because we are). He switches to English, "Oh, I was just asking if..."

He keeps talking for a while. He works at Incheon International Airport and needs to know English for his job, he tell us. He's been studying on his own for the past seven years. In terms of grammar, word choice and use, his English is perfect. His pronunciation isn't too bad either(although I had to stifle laughs when he said "Engrish" and "Filum" instead of film)

Eventually, he decides he wants to know a little about us. "What are you doing in Seoul?" he asks us along with a few other questions. There's a brief silence before he continues, addressing only me, "Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?"

I nod my assent.

"Can I ask why are you a studying Kor--"

"My mother's Korean. I'm half Korean," I answer before he finishes. It's not like I didn't know what he was going to ask.

"Oh," he replies, and it seems that our conversation has ended...until the train arrives thirty seconds later and we walk towards it beside him.

"So," he turns to me, "I'm not married yet," he says, continuing to add some more qualifiers in the typically roundabout Korean way of getting to the point: "What would you think if I married an American woman," he asks as if he expects me to be shocked.

It takes me a second to respond because, um I'm half-Korean, and I really have no idea why he's asking me this like I should be shocked. I don't know exactly what I answered back, but it was something like, "I'd have no problem with it," or "that's great."

He seems little embarassed and mumbles something like, "I guess that was a dumb question," and we exchange, "it was nice talking to you"'s before we're seperated as we enter the packed car.