Little kids have been awesome this week as they've given me a lot to write about. This isn't the kids I teach either that these funny encounters have been with, but rather with just random kids in Suncheon. First off their staring. The best was probably last Saturday as I rode the elevator up to work. In between the ground and the third floor where the girl and her mother got off this poor girl put a crink in her neck I reckon from the amount of looking at my face smiling then looking at my boots, then back to face, then boots, etc. I don't know exactly if it was the boots or the fact that it broke up the creepy constant staring at the face. It makes me think of when your parents tell you not to stare at a restaurant so you act like you're stretching or picking up a napkin just to sneak another peak. Another staring incident that makes me smile thinking about it and I was laughing hysterically at the time was there were two young girls that were at this small supermarket I was at and they were with who appeared to be their grandmother. They keep peering from either side of their grandmother as she was trying to checkout and pay just to catch a glimpse of me. This really started my wheels turning. What's with all the staring? Then I thought about even in a small town like Georgetown there is so much variety. Really the only thing that gets stares in Georgetown is the 300 lb women that think Spandex and a thong is appropriate for Wal-Mart. Here though there's really not a lot of variety. I can understand then the staring. I was never offended by it. Just intrigued.
The second thing that happened with little kids this week was with my Waffle Lady. On my days that I don't have a 3 o'clock class if I'm not in a rush to get to work I sometimes catch her when she's really busy because kids have just gotten out of their first academy. I went there on Thursday and asked for a Potato Tornado, actually just saying potato in Korean, and she started speaking really quickly. (Let me just note that learning Korean is a slow process and so even if she had spoken real-ly slow-ly I still wouldn't have had a prayer of understanding unless she speaks like mom and I do and uses her hands for about 85% of the conversation.) Anyways, one of the elementary school girls either saw my confusion (I was smiling and nodding my head so not so much confused as complacent) and giggled to her friend and then told me in English that she had said that there would be a small wait. I told her thank you. They just started cracking up. Then some middle school girls came into the awning and started talking to the waffle lady and one of them paused turned to me and asked “where are you from?” The odd thing though was she didn't wait for an answer as the waffle lady started laughing along with these girls and evidently it as extremely humorous (I was getting a kick out of it, but I highly doubt it was for the same reason).
The last thing that's been awesome about little kids in this small town is all this week more and more Korean kids have been telling me “HI” just to practice their English or be adventurous and talk to the white guy. Whatever the case may be it's be hilarious because they say Hi and that's it. If I say hi back they'll start laughing or they'll say Hi and then run back to whatever they were doing beforehand. It's like doorbell ditching in person haha. It always makes me smile though.
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