Friday, September 25, 2009

The pink lady and her dog


There's a woman whom I often walk past in the mornings on my way to school.

I am walking along the river path to school, and she is walking her dog. She wears a cute little hat, usually some item of pink clothing and has a dog on a leash. The dog is a bit different from most other dogs I have encountered in Korea. Most dogs are either very small, maltese-poodle or jack-russell style, just the size to fit in a small apartment, or they are big and ready for the pot. Her dog is medium-sized and white, with a cute tail that curls up. They are a cute pair, and along with the man with the mole whom I wrote about in an email a few months back, they are the ones I see most regularly on my way to school and we greet each other.

But because of langage difuculties, we never go beyond greetings, I often wonder if it wouldn't be nice to meet up for coffee (with a translator in attendance of course) but then I think of the mission of organising it and leave it be. Then I wonder if we'll ever go beyond greetings, and then I leave that too because I'm probably being silly.

But today she did it! I walked past her and said "Anyeonghasseyo!" as usual, and she said "Anyeonghasseyo! Yeppoyo!". Wow! She greeted me AND said I looked pretty. How very kind of her! She made my day, at 8:20am! What a sweet lady. I am going to ask someone to help me learn how to say "Your dog is very cute." I can't really say she's pretty because she's usually wearing sports clothes and often a face mask - in contrastI am dressed as smart as I get for school -and I do try! I'm a stickler for honesty. So I'll go for the dog until I can be honest about her prettiness!

These are the little encounters that make this a memorable experience, despite all differences in language, culture etc.

1 comment:

EEbEE said...

if you want to have a conversation with someone and can't speak their language all you have to do is call them over, walk together and randomly point and laugh it things along the way...

easy peasy