Idiots on a bus

My trip gave me a chance to reflect on some of my very, very wrong conceptions of Western and Korean society. Let me just start out with a disclaimer that no matter where one is from nor how much one tries to prevent it, ethnocentrism will creep into one's mindset when living abroad. It's just too easy to compare cultures and to remember "how good it was" back home.

When I'm walking around, getting the one-arm shove, being stared at, or hearing people clear their noses (through their throats) at a dinner table, I often slip into the mindset that I come from such a courteous, conscientious culture. When that happens, the easy way to return to reality is to swallow a dose of "we think we're still in college," a.k.a. a group of 20-30 year-olds. Might I suggest a festival?

Large festivals will definitely draw expats. This is great for expats who want to experience a facet of their host country's culture, but also can leave distasteful memories when they fail to conduct themselves in a respectable manner. This reflects badly on Westerners, but Americans in particular; even if the individuals are Australian or Swedish, the automatic assumption to the untrained Korean ear is that any white person speaking English (or, sometimes, any foreign tongue) is American.

It was on the bus from Mokpo to Jindo. There was a group of three people; two were Australian, and one, I think, was British. Thank God I don't have to claim any of them! We have enough imbeciles giving us a bad rep.

I had decided to avoid them the moment I saw one of them boarding the bus with a half-empty soju bottle. Unfortunately for me, there were precious few empty seats when I boarded. They took 3 of the 5 back seats, leaving two empty. I didn't care if my avoiding them would offend them; the last thing I wanted was to be bathing in vomit. I wisely took a seat in a row cattycorner to them.

True to form, they proved to be overly loud, obnoxious, overbearing and ethnocentric. Not only did they lack any form of volume control, but they even sang on a bus. SANG. I cringed during the silence between my songs when I heard them.

I debated for awhile whether to confront them or not. I was sure they were bothering the rest of the bus, but I didn't really want to create a loud conflict that would add 'violent' and 'aggressive' to Koreans' list of adjectives describing Westerners. So I swallowed my bile and sat in silence, and now I rather regret that. I wish I had asked them, politely, to lower their voices, just to prove that we're not all a crowd of drunken rabble-rousers. I'm ashamed to admit that my courage failed me.

Why would they get drunk and get on a bus? Did they not see what problems that would pose? It was only noon, for crying out loud!

Cue in the waegugin factor. Often, foreigners can get away with things that Koreans can't get away with. Sometimes we get extra services. Sometimes, a cop won't prevent you from jaywalking, just because of a language barrier. Sometimes you can have seats to yourself because people don't want to sit next to a foreigner.

But the waegugin factor cuts both ways. Sometimes we get ripped off just because we're foreign. Sometimes cops hone in on you because you're an easy target. All too often, people will stare at you, just because your hair is different, your skin is different, and you have a big nose.

Perhaps, in their minds, those three on the bus justified their behaviour because Koreans are heavy drinkers and do occasionally cause a ruckus in public places. But they must have forgotten that in a foreign country, they do, in fact, represent Western society, English-speakers, English teachers, and like I mentioned, Americans, regardless of their country of origin. Because no matter how educated a person is, or how objective a person tries to remain, one's perception of a people group will be formed by one's exposure to persons of that group.

It's time for us expats to recognize that we aren't as important as we think we are, we're not as immune as we think we are, and that we are held to a higher standard of behaviour because we are representatives of Western society, and our actions will influence Korean perceptions.