Just another surreal day in Korea

Since I'm speaking of the surreal. This pic taken at
Trick Art show in Busan. Photo by Scottie Hoang.

Since I am on a roll I just thought I would share how my morning went today.  The walk to school began with a rain/snow mix of weather coming down, which is only somewhat odd for my area of Korea.  As I'm trying to navigate my way through the umbrellas I am stopped by ajumma and she asks ME for directions to somewhere that I unfortunately had no idea where it was.  I have no idea why she decided to stop me out of all the other Koreans she could have asked but it definitely made me feel like I may actually look like I know what I am doing in this country.

Then as I turn the corner and head toward my school this cute little halmeoni stopped me to say hello to me, in English.  She then puts out her hand and gestures for my hand, which I give her she then puts her arm around me and proceeds to give me a hug. In my head I'm just thinking, "OK".  She gives me a hug and then says to me in Korean that she loves me at least that is all I was able to understand. She also made a heart gesture with her hands and then half a heart with her arm and indicated I was supposed to make the other half... what could I do? So of course I did it.

As I continued my walk to school I started thinking where in the world is that film crew that should be following me around and capturing these moments on film for me to share.  It also started me thinking as to why I am accepting of this kind of behavior here when back at home there is no way I would tolerate it.  Is it because Koreans, and this is a gross generalization, appear non-threatening?  Am I concerned more about offending strangers here than I am back home so more inclined to "just go with it" here?  How would my life at home be different if I acted the same way?  There is definitely a feeling of safety here in Korea that I don't get at home in the US.  As a matter of fact I feel safer in almost any city outside of the US I have traveled in than any city I have been in within the US.  This may be one of the reasons I am beginning to feel less and less like the USA is my home.  While I am still debating whether to stay in Korea or move on to grad school at the end of my contract, (the pro-con list continues to change on a daily basis), I am beginning to realize that if I do move back to the USA it won't be permanently.  Until I figure everything out I am just going to savor every moment I have in Korea with my fantastic new international friends.