So I was on my way to 용산 (Yongsan) once again this time to possibly buy a PSP or a video camera. I really wasn't sure which when all of a sudden a man comes on the subway and bam as soon as he sees me the conversation begins.
"Where are you from?", he asks.
"America", I reply.
"Ah, are you a soldier?".
"No, I am a teacher".
"Oh very good an English teacher!", he says excitedly.
The subway car was packed so he pretty much knew there was no where I could run. He had me and a free English lesson and there was nothing I could do about it.
So we chatted for a bit while I waited to get off at my stop. He was a 60 year old business man, who has studied English for about 5 years. He was able to hold a basic conversation. There were two awkward moments, one when he wanted me to explain the meaning of "contents" and looked at me suspiciously when I tried to explain. The definition didn't make sense with some random comment he read by Allen Greenspan something like "the contents must be good for the future" or some such thing. The 2nd came when I told him how old I was. He kept saying ah 28 is a monkey! haha! I wasn't really sure how to respond to that one, but by now I'm used to things going a bit weird. Overall a nice conversation. Oh one more thing, and this is actually very cool. He asked me if I have a Korean girlfriend which I don't, and he told me I should find one. I was NOT expecting that from an old Korean man. Coming from a highly nationalistic and xenophobic society, I was pretty happy with that comment. That man was obviously well cultured.
Oh, I ended up not buying anything and I just wandered around for a while. Tomorrow I am going into Seoul to meet friend. If anything is blog worthy I shall post again tomorrow.
