I know I said before that I was excited about living in places that are more different than home—that apparently has its limits.
One of the most interesting things to do while traveling is to observe the similarities and differences between cultures. Seoul is, in many respects, a very modern, Western-feeling city. There’s extensive and easy public transportation, and Itaewon, the expat neighborhood, has all the cuisine I’ve been missing on the road (Tex Mex! Pizza! BBQ!).
But there are differences, of course. Some of them are innocuous: sure, I’ll take off my shoes when I enter my apartment; I wish there were a chair up front to sit on when I have to put them back on, but whatever. Some of them don’t thrill me but don’t really affect me: many Koreans driiiiiink with dinner; just on Tuesday, I saw one girl fall down while trying to exit a restaurant, and another girl in my building had to run to the bathroom to throw up, all before 9 pm. But one difference I just can’t handle: Koreans, you’re nice enough, but please don’t touch me.
It happens on the street frequently. A woman, rather than walking around me, put her arms around me and physically moved me from her path. A man, upset that I didn’t take the flyer he was offering me, resorted to tapping my arm aggressively.
I’m willing to believe that I was doing something wrong in these situations. The woman was older; perhaps I was supposed to leap out of her way. Maybe Koreans take all the street flyers they’re offered. (This would be a problem unto itself, but that’s another matter.) But whatever the problem, the solution is never to touch me.
The strangest incarnation of this issue was actually the best intentioned. We went to a restaurant one night, James Cheese Back Ribs. It’s basically just what it sounds like—baby back ribs with melted cheese wrapped around them. They have illustrative photos at the entrance to lure in curious travelers like ourselves:
I like the concept, to be honest. I love ribs, I love melted cheese, I’m down to combine the two. But the problem is that they didn’t just let you eat your cheesy ribs in peace.
First, they made us don protective gear. Koreans really, really do not like to eat with their hands. So we had to put a glove on our left hands and use chopsticks in our right hands to maneuver the ribs into our mouths.
Second, they wouldn’t let us assemble our own cheesy ribs. A woman wrapped cheese around a rib and deposited it into one of our bowls. Once we ate that rib, she would give us another.
If it had stopped there, I would have been baffled and slightly annoyed, but I would have been okay. But it did not stop there.
When we got fried rice, the woman who had been assembling our ribs mixed it up in the remaining cheese, made a bite (with kimchi, of course, the universal condiment), BLEW ON IT, and then fed my friend like a baby. My friend tried to protest, but it was useless. That spoon was going in her mouth.
At another point, I made the grievous error of touching a rib—lightly, I did not grab, my hand merely grazed the rib—and a woman came racing out of the kitchen with a wet wipe.
Did she hand it to me to use as I saw fit?
No. She did not. She wet wiped my hand.
This is all hilarious, of course, but it also made me extremely uncomfortable. I don’t have a phobia when it comes to touch: I’ll shake someone’s hand upon meeting; I have zero problems when it comes to romantic relationships. But I don’t thrive on touch the way others seem to. I don’t feel the need to hug my friends when I just saw them yesterday. And I really don’t care to be unnecessarily touched, particularly by strangers.
One of the other people (a man, of course) at dinner thought I was being silly: “No, no, this is great; think about it. If you were lying on the beach, and some hot guy was feeding you grapes, wouldn’t that be awesome?”
No. No no no. First of all, I can eat the grapes by my damn self. But second, we’re at a restaurant, we’re eating cheesy ribs, and there’s not a hot dude in sight, just an overly attentive woman trying to wipe my hands and feed us.
And this wasn’t an isolated feeding incident; a woman at a bar offered us French fries and then attempted to deposit them directly in our mouths. I ran away.
It’s been an interesting month here in Seoul—I’ve seen some beautiful sights, learned quite a bit more about history and current events, and eaten some tasty food (the cheesy ribs, to be fair, were very good)—but the lack of personal space boundaries means Seoul will never quite feel like home to me.
I do live in New York, after all. We can scream obscenities at each other on the street corner; just don’t touch me.
