Get Your Filthy Hands off Our Women

I came to Korea largely on the recommendation from my friend/neighbor Jeff. Jeff is low key, agreeable, thoughtful, and friendly guy. I mention these characteristics because I have gone out with him and his girl friend, Hae-mi, three times and 2/3 of the nights ended with Jeff leaving enraged. This is a result of Korean men being highly provocative towards him, for what at first, seemed to be no apparent reason. However, after further less intoxicated review and with the help of a translator it becomes fairly obvious what the reason was. As the title of this blog post has spoiled it is as a result of him dating a Korean girl. Though I would further hypothesize that it is because this Korean girl is attractive. I base this hypothesis on the fact the previous weekend I met randomly with two British guys who were with plumper and less appealing women. Their displays of affection were not met with glares so much as they were met with Koreans averting their eyes.

The first time he got enraged was when we were at a "western bar" called NPub. There two 20 something Koreans who looked quite nerdy joined our table. We then shared a 13 dollar pint of beer that Jeff purchased. They proceeded to offer me endless compliments in a transparent fashion, that made me think they were doing it for reasons other then the fact that they really did think that I had "kind eyes". After we finished we played some pool and they continued to compliment me on my below average pool playing ability. I then tried to befriend this little Korean guy who reminded me of the nerdy Japanese guy from Heroes. Hae-mi then asked if I was enjoying my date with this little Korean guy, (while I understood the implication, the observation was factually incorrect because you can't really go on a date with someone right after you meet them, so who's really the gay one). I then tried to explain it was because he was sitting at a table full of desirable women and she responded that I should just talk to the women and then I had no response. So I am talking to this quirky little Korean guy, who is totally not introducing me to the women and then out of know where Jeff says something to the effect of "this asshole is calling me a babo (a harsher form of stupid,) and he's trying to hit on you, so "fuck him". At this point, I went to pee and while peeing I questioned if those guys were honest about my eyes looking kind. When I get done they were gone and raced down the stairs outside and saw them grabbing a taxi with a lot of yelling and bad words getting bandied about. There is no fight, which is perhaps a disappointing conclusion, but I am blogging and have to maintain the integrity of the truth.

The second time a Korean guy started a fight was last night. I think it was because Jeff and Hae-mi were holding hands. I was super drunk and only remember leaving NPub and then hearing Jeff yell. This was followed by a Korean guy repeatedly yelling "I fuck you mom". Then Jeff kept loudly explaining to Hae-mi that this guy says he wanted to "fuck my mom". I tried to explain to Jeff that if you really parsed the words, he was actually saying that he wanted to fuck his own mom. Though in my drunken state I probably didn't exactly use the word parsed or really anything understandable, actually if I am being totally truthful then I think I just giggled and said nothing.