I have to admit something to you Korean readers. I have a love-hate relationship (mostly strongly dislike) with middle-aged Korean women, also known as "ajummas" or "아줌마" in Korean. Sometimes they can be very nice and accommodating, but I've had mostly negative experiences with them (sometimes the servers are rude and many times ajummas can be selfish on the subway) in my 15 years of living in South Korea. Today was no exception.
Today I went to Haneul Park, which is near World Cup Stadium in Seoul. I climbed the stairs up to the park with many people in line as they made their way up the small mountain that overlooks the Han River. The right side of the stairs was for people going up to the park and the left side was for people going down.
Everyone was following each other in an orderly manner except for one middle-aged woman (an ajumma) that wanted to walk up the left side to get past all of the people. When she saw people coming down, she would quickly go back to the right side and then go back to the left side when the people on the left side passed her going down. She repeated that process at least four times. Then I thought to myself, "Well there are other middle-aged ajummas that are actually going up the stairs the right way. There's always one rude one in every bunch no matter where you go, so I let it go and dismissed it.
Then I got to the top, made my rounds around the park, took a lot of pictures, enjoyed the scenery, and then sat down on a bench to finish watching Game 6 of the Major League Baseball National League Championship Series between the Dodgers and Brewers on my phone. After the game was over, I walked around the park a little more and then realized that I had to use the restroom.
When I got to the public restrooms at the park, there was an extremely long line for the women's restroom, so I checked to see if the line was long for the men's one. As I walk over to the men's restroom, I notice three ajummas standing in line. Yes, they were in line for the MEN's restroom at 2:30pm on a Saturday. In front of them was a father with his daughter. I couldn't believe it. Surprisingly, no one really said anything until one Korean guy said "This is the men's restroom" and I repeated in Korean "right" and that it was the men's restroom. Their response was a weak "yes" (네) in Korean, but in this situation it really meant "Yeah we know but we don't really care."
The kicker was when the cleaning lady walked into the men's restroom with her mop. As she walked in the look on her face showed that she wondered why there were ajummas in line but didn't know what to say. Because of that she just started to clean and just accepted the situation as it was. After she started cleaning, she noticed three vacant urinals and says to me that I could use one of them. I said in Korean "There are women here!" and gave her a look as if to say "Isn't it obvious that I need my privacy?" Then she tells the women that it is indeed the men's restroom, but they ignored her. She gave up telling them and continued to clean. Finally, a couple of older men came in, seemed surprised by the ajummas in line, but eventually didn't care and just did their thing at the urinals. It was my turn and I used the stall. After I got out, an ajumma was right there waiting for me to use my stall....in the men's restroom.
So why do ajummas have such a strong-willed and nonchalant character? I might just have to talk about that in my next blog post. Until next time....
Scott Worden (The L.A./Seoul Guy)
Instagram: laseoulguy
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