"Hey Bae-by!

Four months into my stay here in Korea, one of the things that hasn't changed and never will is the way people react to seeing me. No matter how accustomed to Korea and fluent my language skills become, people are always going to stare as I walk down the street. High school girls will yell "hi" and giggle as I walk by, people selling things will offer up some broken English to convince me to buy their product, and occasionally someone will chase me down the street even while I'm on my bicycle to try and talk with me. I run into the same drunk Korean once a month on my way to school, and he'll ask me questions and give me random pieces of paper. He's harmless, just really weird.

The other day I had another of these kinds of run-ins. I had stopped to get my hair cut while coming home from school, and I'd gone a few blocks from the hairdresser's towards home. I was walking my bike this time, cause I had a flat tire, so I was able to hear this lady yelling behind me about something, like she wanted someone to wait for her. I turned to realize it was me she was yelling at, and she charged her way across the road towards me, kind of looking for cars on the way, but I don't think she would have waited for them to stop. I figured I had left something at the hairdresser's, but when she got closer to me I realized this lady wasn't from there at all.

She was probably late 30's, wearing a somewhat nice black dress of sorts (big and flowing and very Asian). But there was something quite off about her - she had a really bad dye job on her hair and an intense worried look on her face. As she stormed up to me, she starts rambling on about "Where are you from," and "What's going on?"

"Ummm, I'm from Canada"

"Oh really? Oh that's great" She's shuffling back and forth on her feet, and speaking in a really strange accent. "I'm from the USA too, you know, that's great. So yeah bae-by, where are you going?" She says baby really strangely too me, like some kind of Korean 50's jazz singer, and I'm instantly squirming to keep my bike between the two of us.

"Oh, yeah, um, I'm just heading home you know, it's the end of the day," I tell her.

"Oh really bae-by? Yeah, you, where are you from? I'm from Chicago, and *unintelligible* so you should, like, hey, where are you going, bae-by?"

"I'm just going home, and - " "Oh you live 'round here!" she cuts me off, "that's great bae-by, where do you live? I'm from America and I dunno about *unintelligible* Korea and *unintelligible* so you think I could come to your place bae-by?" She's looking a little frantic almost now, and seems to be as uncomfortable as I am, shifting her weight back and forth and getting wide-eyed on me every few seconds.

"Uhhh, that's probably not a good idea," I stutter.

"Ahh, bae-by, whatchoo doin' now, huh? You wanna *unintelligible - may have been "go someplace" * and, yeah bae-by..."

"I gotta go home, my girlfriend is waiting for me..."

"Where do you live, bae-by?"

"Just around here," I say, and point the opposite way of my house.

"Bae-by!!" She yells, and double hand-slaps my chest. It's definitely time to go, I decide.

"It's been nice," I say, "but it's definitely time for me to get going home."

"Maybe you could wanna stay here with me," she says. I decline and start walking away, zig-zagging my way home. She says something else to me on my way, and wanders off slowly.

My guess is, she was/is a prostitute, but then again maybe she was a single mother looking for her way out of poverty. Either way, I don't think she was that far from home, and I'm sure I'll see her again before I end up leaving the country. Oh bae-by...