쳐다보지 마세요.
his weekend, I got the chance to hang out with a girl from Ohio who teaches at one of the elementary schools in my neighborhood. I got the chance to speak in English! Fluently! She lives in the bigger area not too far away, and I am trying to get over my ideas that a five dollar taxi ride is paying too much.
I also just had a teacher I work with teach me how to say "please stop staring" in Korean. (In Hangul, it is 쳐다보지 마세요. the Romanization is cheo da boji masseyo.)
It gets old, but I understand and am fine with people looking at me. I get that I'm one of the first white people some people have ever seen in person, and that it is pretty darn interesting. I get it. And most people realize that I'm a person, and at least are somewhat respectful, or are at least nice about it.
But what ISN'T nice is when people forget that I'm a person, and when they keep staring in really disrespectful ways. Really, I can see you staring at my ass while I'm on the treadmill - there is a whole wall of mirrors, and you aren't being subtle. Or when I meet your eyes to let you know you've taken it a little too far and you then start staring about a foot lower than my eyes? Not appropriate.
And the thing is, I know that it is considered rude here to stare, at least in that way. And so it is the fact that sometimes I'm not treated like an actual person that really gets to me. And I know that I'm lucky, and that if I were in a bigger area it would be worse. But sometimes it is just too much.
쳐다보지 마세요.
2 comments:
Ahhh, the staring...
Will we ever get used to it? SHOULD we ever get used to it?
With varying degrees of success, I have tried the following:
1. Staring back with eyes wide open and a grimace.
2. Beginning a conversation in such rapid-fire English that they sort of excuse themselves and run away, convinced that I am totally insane.
3. Pointed back at them (very effective with children, who tend to point as well as stare)
The funny thing is that I am stared at less here, in Suncheon, than I am in Gwangju. It's weird - Gwangju is a bigger city, but Suncheon has more foreigners, I guess.
Ms Parker said...
I think what it comes down to for me is the level of respect - when they forget that we are people. And here, I usually get recognized as a person - I'm not just random foreigner, I'm the teacher at the middle school (there is only one in the neighborhood, and we are pretty far from the main area of town) - so it is strange for me when it feels really uncomfortable.
I do like the rapid-fire response, as it would allow me to speak normally AND get them to back off... Hmm.
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