Got milk?

I never imagined what my first time being asked if I was a prostitute would be like, but I know I wouldn't have imagined this.

Today, like all days, I was pretty tired when I got home from work.  I know my slippers don't have any arch support and by the end of the day my feet hurt like hell.  Today was exceptionally bad for some reason, so when I finally did get home, I had no intention of leaving my bed until it was time for school in the morning.  At my apartment I quickly threw on sweats and began looking for pirated videos to watch online. After an episode of Top Chief I had grown hungry, so I got up to make myself a bowl of cereal.  When I opened the fridge I realized that I had finished all my milk during my morning meal.  Laziness still overcoming hunger, I tried to curb my appetite with an unhealthy amount of cheese and some crackers....30 minutes later...still hungry and the idea of waking up early to get milk seemed even more unappealing than getting up and getting it now.  Angrily, I threw on a hoodie over my T-shirt and headed to the corner store at the end of my street.  As luck would have it, the rain started when I got outside (obviously i'd left my umbrella upstairs) and the 7/11 corner store was out of milk.  This meant that I had to walk to the Family Mart down the street past the gaggles of hammered, shiny suited business men that come to my neighborhood every night for a hearty animal organ dinner.

If it wasn't clear from my previous post about the bottle head girl, this area of Seoul is a far cry from some tame residential neighborhood.  It's commonplace to see groups of belligerent men, arm in arm, stumbling down the street at 8pm on a Tuesday.  Knowing this, I don't particularly enjoy walking down the gauntlet alone after a certain point in the night.  At least in America you can understand the things that are being said to you, it's a whole new experience to have a group of drunks yelling things in a foreign language and laughing.

With my head down, I quickly walked through the groups of people, avoiding speeding scooters and honking cars.  Right outside the Family Mart was a group of younger Korean men standing enjoying some cigarettes.  As I walked by I heard one of them say in broken English "you Russian?" which is code for, "are you a prostitute?"  Apparently, there are a lot of Russian hookers here and apparently, they use this line a lot on foreigners.  I tried to pretend like I didn't hear anything and continued toward the store.  Right before I entered I heard "2000!!!" and some other comment about Russians.  Now if I'm trying to find something positive in this whole situation, i would try and convince myself that he was talking about 2000 American dollars, but if i'm being realistic, and taking into account my dress and appearance, he was talking Korean money.  2000 won. Which equates to about 2 dollars US.  So along with being asked if I was a hooker, he offered me 2 bucks.  Ego check. 

After buying my milk (which was 2 dollars and 50 cents) I composed myself and walked out of the Family Mart.  That's when I realized that during my time in the store, he had actually collected money from his group of friends and as I walked by he held out a wad of crumpled bills and tried his best to say something in English.  This is where I lost it a bit, to yell things at a girl walking alone on the street is bad enough, to calculate and actively continue with the rudeness is pathetic.  Knowing that he wouldn't understand any profanities or slurs, I decided to do the more universally recognized insult of spitting at his feet and flipping him off about 3 inches from his face.  I think seeing the bottle head girl may have given me that extra push of crazy to stand up to a group guys in a foreign country.  It wasn't your standard milk run, but my cereal dinner did taste delicious.