Saturday, September 13, 2008

found!

I went over to a convenience store close to campus to buy some lunch, and lo and behold-- at the cash register was another Korean lady! (cue tympani) We spoke in Korean about what I was doing; there wasn't time to ask her about her story, alas: there were too many customers, including one ancient lady who had spilled out the entire contents of her coupon bag onto the counter to look for, well, something. As the old lady fumbled and muttered, the cashier beckoned me forward.

The cashier was cute-- which makes me want to shop there again-- but I got something of an ajumma vibe from her. I suspect she's married, even though I didn't see a ring.* Alas. Look but don't touch. Story of my life. (Of course, having written this, I can never tell her about this blog.)

But I'll be back. Oh, yes, Precious... I'll be returning to that store!

So now I've met three of the five Koreans supposedly living in Walla Walla. I'm beginning to suspect there are more than five** in the area; Walla Walla's downtown might be small, but the residential zone sprawls lazily in all directions. Koreans in the DC-Metro area tend to live in the suburbs around the nation's capital; why should it be any different here? Still, I imagine there can't be that many Koreans here; the lady from the terikaki-jip was probably right about that. By the time I leave Walla Walla, I'll have gathered all the census data there is about the local Korean populace.






*Koreans in Korea sometimes go without their wedding rings. It's usually the men who do this, but sometimes the women do, too; reasons may vary from innocent to oh-so-naughty. Korean culture doesn't place the same emphasis on wedding rings as Western culture generally does, which is only natural; the use of a wedding ring is, from the Korean perspective, a Western convention-- an imported idea.

**You'll recall that we're not counting Korean college students; for all intents and purposes, they're part of the transient population.


_

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ah, the old Kevin emerges.

Do NOT expect KWC to do any of the legwork for this aspect of the Walk.

Kevin Kim said...

What, do I usually come off as randy?


Kevin

Charles said...

You're kind of like a superhero: mild-mannered Kevin by day, crime-fighting Randy by night.

I found that very few Korean actually wear their wedding rings on a regular basis, but I've also found very few people (read: "none, but I don't like to make generalizations based on my limited experience") who don't wear their rings for naughty reasons. If the rings actually meant something here, yeah, I could see taking it off to be a little... randy... but they don't. In the West people automatically look for the ring, but here they don't seem to notice it at all. I wear my wedding ring all the time and I still get people asking if I'm married. I've also seen girls with rings on their left ring fingers and found out that they're not married. They just don't seem to see any significance to it at all.