Personal. Space.

Seoul is a crowded place. Most numbers say something around 12 million people in Seoul proper and nearly 25 million including the surrounding area.  With that amount of people living and working here it's no surprise that you sometimes feel like you're in a human sardine can.  Being that it's crazy crowded you'd think people would take steps to lesson the congestion, or make it a little more bearable, but unfortunately they don't, they often do things to make it worse.

The Fievel Goes West Incident
Anyone who's seen the childhood classic will most likely remember the scene in which Fievel and Tiger are walking towards each other in the middle of the desert, but they both assume what they see is a mirage, so they continue on in different directions.  The same thing happened to me, except that I was walking on a street, not the desert....and instead of just passing by, this 35 year old Korean dude plowed into me like a freight train...and instead of continuing in my own direction, I whipped around and screamed "are you serious?!?" I was basically hugging the edge of the sidewalk and this man's unnecessary contact had me tumbling into the street.  So the only real correlation this story has to the Fievel scene is the fact that I was walking in the opposite direction of another individual....

This happened on my way to school, and let me just say that those sort of things really put a damper on the morning.  Calmly walking, listening to my ipod and some d bag in a shiny suit sends me into a rage before I even step foot in Reggio.  Hope your computer got a virus and crashed, guy.

In Da Club
There is no such thing as maximum occupancy in Korea.  In night clubs/bars they pack in as many bodies as possible.  There have been a couple times where I felt myself beginning to panic because I literally could not move.  Situations like these aren't conducive with a fun night out. Wanna get a drink? Forget it. Wanna make your way to the other side of the club? Not gonna happen. Ohh you need to use the bathroom? Pull a cat class and pee your pants, cause there's a better chance you'll make it into Area 51.  The one thing you can do is dance--just be prepared to feel like you're freak dancing random Korean strangers on all sides of you.  Boys and girls.  Don't get me wrong, going out in Seoul is a blast.  I would know,  I behave like a 16 year old who has just discovered alcohol whenever i'm out in this fair city--but the ticket is to stay near exits and go to places where they don't pride themselves on making their night clubs into an oversized version of a clown car.

5-7pm Subway Rides
Millions and millions of people use these trains everyday and I happen to live right by the station where the 2 most heavily used subway lines intersect.  Unbelievably convenient 95% of the time, but unbelievably hectic/chaotic/nightmarish the other 5%.  Earlier this week I had to get to the other side of the city right after school, smack in the middle of rush hour.  At this point I still didn't comfortable shoving my way through groups of people to get to a good spot inside the car and I made the unfortunate mistake of standing right beside the sliding door.  When we made our first stop, I realized just how badly I had fucked up.  Not only was I being thrown around like a rag doll by people shuffling off and on the train, but an ajuma gave me a kidney check with her elbow, got around me, stepped on my toe and then looked at me like I was the one in the wrong.  No thoughts of elderly respect were going through my mind at that particular moment.  The whole time we were at this stop I was standing there with my hands in the air, like I was about to get arrested, saying "ok, ok, ok, alright, yeah, ohh k, ahh, ok."  Safe to say i've been a little more aggressive when jockeying for position since then.

Some of my friends have described it as "Korea Rage".  Others have dubbed it "I hate Korea days".  Whatever you call it, it all stems from the same place, the overwhelming need for some personal space and some common courtesy.  Most of the time it's not even a factor, but on the days where I just don't want to be touched, pulled, moved, shoved, bumped, honked at or nearly hit by a scooter, it's literally enough to drive me crazy.  Thank god I don't have those days often, because I highly doubt the Reggio administration would be stoked about having to find a substitute teacher for an employee spending some time in jail.