I was aware from reading the Lonely Planet snippet about Gongju that it was not a big place, so although I wasn’t expecting to be greeted by skyscrapers and a McDonald’s, I was surprised how dead the place seemed. We started walking around trying to find our way to the bus stop to the historic sites which we understood to lie outside the center of the town.
After wandering around for about half an hour, we decided to simplify
the process and take a taxi to the bus stop. There were three of us to split the fare, and how far could it be, really? We were there in mere minutes.
The bus station in Gongju is definitely the shadiest place I’ve been to in Korea. It was quite cavernous, and this effect was magnified by the fact that there appeared to be no lighting inside the place. Although there were stalls for a few dozen stores, there were in fact only a few that had any services to offer. We followed the signs looking for a way to get to the museum, but still couldn’t seem to find anything.
As we were walking through the station, a mother walked by with her son who was maybe three years old. He looked at us, gasped, pointed, and said to his mother in Korean “whyyyyy?”
His mother looked at us, thought quickly and answered “It’s makeup.”
Ben heard it first, and when he told me, I was initially shocked. Real nice, I thought. They look different, so it MUST be makeup. Way to build tolerance and understanding, ma. In hindsight though, I don’t know what else she could have told him.
In the meantime, we weren’t having any luck figuring out how to get to this stupid museum and botanical gardens. I decided that I would have to ask someone. I went up to the Kodak shop, one of the only shops open and which also happened to be clean. I asked them in Korean how to get
to the museum, and she and her husband had a very fast conversation in Korean that I didn’t understand. I assumed that they had no idea what I had asked, so I sheepishly thanked them and we left the store.
As we walked towards the exit, the woman started yelling in English:
“Miss! Miss! Come back!” We stopped and turned around. “My husband drive you there.”
“What? No, thank you, but no. That’s very nice of you, though.”
“Is no problem. Our daughter high school student. School finish, he go to her.”
“Well you’re busy then. Thank you again for offering.”
“No, no, no. Daughter school is next to museum. Is no problem. Come, come.”
Her husband already had his keys in hand and was putting on his jacket as he walked out of the building. We weren’t getting anywhere fast, so we decided, against all the advice our mothers had ever given us about getting into a van with strangers, that we should get into this man’s van despite the fact that he didn’t even have any candy.
So there we sat in a stranger’s minivan in a strange city in the middle of Korea. As we drove, Ben started an exciting round of the “do you like” game. This is a game that we’ve learned from our students, who will ask us what we like on a daily basis regardless of how many times we’ve answered the exact same question. These usually include intellectual gems such
as “Teacher, do you like-apple?” or “Do you like-poop? Oh! A HA HA!
A HA HA! Haaaaaa.”
It is an exciting game, because you learn a lot about yourself and the people around you. For example, Ben does not like poop, which I did know, and he does not like apple fritters, which I did not know. We learn something new everyday.
In a few minutes, we arrived at a new building that looked quite shiny and nice despite the dark day. The man dropped us off in the parking lot and aid goodbye. I tried to offer him a little money for gas, but he refused and said it was no problem. I made sure to get a picture with him before he left. Nobody would believe such a generous thing had happened. Of course, he probably got lots of storytime mileage about the time he drove these three crazy foreigners to the museum. I wonder if it would turn into one of those fisherman’s tales where each time he tells the story the foreigners get a little more glamorous until we turn into world famous celebrities, or so morbidly obese that he could hear the car scraping he ground beneath the minivan as we gorged on cheeseburgers.
I have to say despite the humor I am trying to infuse into this story that I would not expect the extent of helpfulness extended to us in Gongju anywhere else in the world. In the west, people are too mistrustful of strangers. If a guy I’d asked for directions offered me a ride, I wouldn’t accept it, and even if I did I would be sweating the whole way that I would be raped and killed, my murder never to be solved. In the less developed parts of the world, I would never get into a stranger’s car because you never know what can happen.
That was not the last time we were to be taken care of by strangers in the little town. I know, especially lately (this trip happened about a year ago. I’m a bit behind), that I’ve been a little hard on Korea, but it does have its virtues. This story along with some of the better cab stories are what keep me going when I think that I just can’t stand it here anymore. The rest of our time in this little town was definitely one of the highlights of my time in Korea, and so far I’ve only told you about the first hour. Stay tuned!
