The first night there we all went out walking around the harbor, and on the way back came upon a guy fishing by himself. He stops us and asks us where we are from. We start going around and the list is: United States, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Korea, Sweden. He exclaims "We are the World!" and then offers us all some whiskey. Of course some of the boys say yes, and thus begins the journey.
We were turning to go home when he says that he wants to take us all to go Noribang. I should mention that communication is pretty rough, as he speaks no English and amongst us we spoke maybe 2 coherent sentences of Korean. There was a lot of talking and hand motioning, but not a whole lot of understanding. It was still a little early and I was interested to see where this was going, so I stayed. One of the guys, Frank, said he was going to go whether or not anybody else went because it was these cultural moments with real Koreans that he had come there for.
Well we go to a Noribang and the guy keeps going in and out of the room. It started off nice enough, and things were going well right up to the part around when put on "We Are the World". It was touching, I promise you.
It was once we got to "Dancing Queen" that things started to get really weird. He wanted my friend Stephanie to dance more when she was singing and got up and was dancing with her. Then after that was over he wanted me to sing it and kept motioning for me to dance. Either way he wasn't happy and then got even more agitated. Needless to say we were starting to feel uncomfortable at this point.
Luckily the time was up and we tried to leave. He got angry since there was no "service time" (free minutes) put on and he wanted to sing more. By now we were all tired and wanted to get back and away from the guy who was getting more aggressive. What made it even more difficult is we couldn't communicate with him. So finally we say one more song, and when he couldn't find one that we could all sing together he got even more upset. We put on some random Korean song that was a melodramatic ballad, and he sat down on the floor and cried as he sang. At this point I quickly exited and went to find Stephanie who had already escaped.
Outside my friend Ellie told me what the owner had said in the hallway. The owner said that he would give us more free time (even though we begged him not to...) but asked why we came with that man. "Why have you come here with him? Most Hanguk are good people, but this one is dangerous." Needless to say I was happy that Ellie hadn't told me this while we were still inside trying to leave...
We ran down a side street back towards our hotel and looked back to see him following us for the first bit. Sketched out we ran quicker and happily made it to the hotel, all vowing to kill Frank if he ever wanted another "cultural moment" experience like that. But off we went to bed thinking it was over...
The next day we were shocked to see the guy board the ferry to Dokdo. We were sitting at the back and scrunched down so he couldn't see us. The guy had to buy a business seat, so we are pretty sure he only decided to come after hearing us talk about it the night before. We tried our best to stay away from him, but Dokdo is tiny. Before we left the island he had rounded us all up for a picture. We were trying to get back to the boat, but he stopped us and had a soldier take it, explaining that since we were the world we should be allowed one more shot. The funny thing is that Ellie kept saying things like "Smile, say Murder" and had at this point started calling him the Bay Harbar Butcher. The guy really must not have spoken a word of English, because he didn't catch any of this...
Back on the ferry we were again trying to avoid him-I myself ducked into the restroom when he came up behind me. Then we see Julian point us all out to him and walk up to us in the back of the boat. He had bought us souvenier handkerchiefs with a map of Dokdo on it. As creepy as he was, it was kind of a sweet gesture.
Moritz sporting "Fisherman Friends" gear
Our boys were def hardcore, eating ice cream in their "Fisherman Friends" apparel
I would like to tell you that that ended the saga, but then you wouldn't get to hear the most bizzare part. That night we were walking towards the lighthouse on a trail where one side was rock wall and the other was cliff leading to the ocean. At this point it was only Julien and I, later to be joined by two women from the teaching group. All of a sudden we see the guy walking towards us, just our luck. Then he runs past us, not saying a word. This, might I add, is just after we have told the whole story to the women. A minute or two later the guy doubles back and acts like he has happened upon us. He talks and talks and then tries to get our phone numbers and emails. Just to get him to go away I give him a fake one. Not feeling safe out there with the guy we turn back, and I was happy to finally put some distance between us.
When we get back to the restaurant where the rest of the group was my friend Emil comes up and hugs me, asking if we were ok. They had sent a text message saying "WARNING: Fisherman is on WAY", but we hadn't seen it. Knowing how there wasn't much room/path of escape they had been concerned. Luckily everything turned out ok, but it was just a great reminder of how even when trying to make cultural connections with people you really have to be very careful. This time it worked out and we have a crazy story. But perhaps the moral is if some random guy offers you whiskey in a harbor at night, just say no kids.
No comments:
Post a Comment