My weird Korea experience

Getting stuck in the subway always sucks

Do you ever remember someone you only met once and never before? Yesterday before sleeping I remembered a girl I only met one time and I'm very sorry for what happened. I feel guilty. It was my second day in Seoul, it was morning, maybe around 11 am. I left my hostel to the nearby Hansung University subway station. I wasn't really familiar with the Seoul subway system, a day before I got stuck at the turnstiles in the photo above. I couldn't exit and was trapped inside. At last someone helped me and I was released. I knew it was my mistake, but nobody blamed me, they were all friendly. One young guy came to me, spoke English and helped me to buy the smart card. I went to the hostel relieved.

Then came the next morning. Same station, same turnstiles. This time I try to enter. I tap my card... Nothing. I tap again... Nothing. So I back off a little and let some people go through just to see how they do it. They do it fast: Tap, push turnstile, walk away. Looks so easy. I try again... and fail! I was frustrated and looked helpless. I stood there for a while, when a young girl, who looked like a student in her early twenties, came to me and offered help. She didn't speak English, I didn't speak Korean, but we knew what the problem was. She took my smart card and placed it on the scanner for me. It worked... but... you only have a second to walk through the turnstile, if not it gets stuck again. I didn't know that and instead of walking through quickly, I was thanking her. When I finally tried to walk through, the turnstile got stuck again. And my card was already tapped. Bummer.

So we stood there briefly and while I was wondering what to do, she took out her smart card, tapped it and asked me to go through. This time I wasn't hesitating, I moved fast. Once inside, I gently bowed, said gomawo and tried to somehow apologize with sign language for troubling her. She just smiled a little and looked for something in her purse. She looked a bit embarrassed. I left to the trains and felt really bad, because I didn't want to bother the locals on my trip.

Of course it was partly her fault, too, because she tapped my card very quickly and I wasn't expecting, that the turnstile will get stuck, if I don't move quickly enough. But how could she have known that? She just wanted to help. And she was immediately feeling bad and used her card for me to go through. It was just an unfortunate situation. Later I was thinking, whether she arrived late to her meeting or whether this situation affected whatever plans she had for that day. I hope not. I also wondered, if she had told her friends about a silly foreigner, who didn't know how to tap the card in the subway and made her come late. I'd love to hear her side of the story. But I probably never will.

That's what I was thinking yesterday before sleeping. What a weird experience. Luckily, that never happened to me again, I had no problems on Seoul's subway in the following days. It was one of the best trips I ever went on. I hope the girl is fine, but I wonder, if she'd ever help a foreigner like me again.

[gomawo means thank you][Photo by MKL, 2010]