After returning from my "visa run" to Japan, some of my
Korean students asked me what differences I had observed between
the two countries. Half-jokingly, I replied, "I didn't
fear for my life when I crossed the street in Japan like I do in
Korea."
The fact of the matter is, of all the countries I have been
to, Koreans are by far the worst drivers I have ever seen.
They are incredibly aggressive. In fact, the surprise to
me is that I haven't seen any accidents. Koreans must be
extremely good drivers . . . or extremely lucky.
The bus drivers here in Busan are the kings of the
road. The busses are large enough to carry a decent
number of people, but small enough to be nimble in
traffic. While American bus drivers are conservative
and stay in one lane (usually), Korean bus drivers will use
all the lanes of the road on their side. It is not unusual
for standing passengers to sway from their handholds as the
busses change from one lane to another or from the erratic
starts and stops. Being from Arizona, I have been tempted
to yell out, "Yeeeee-haaa! Ride 'em, cowboy!" but I doubt
many Koreans would understand the reference.
Bus drivers are also not shy about expressing their
emotions. These guys lay on their horn often and with
a passion. The other day I thought I'd count the
number of times our driver honked his horn at the other
cars, but I stopped after reaching twenty. Maybe he hit
the horn a total of thirty times that trip . . .and that was
just in a fifteen-minute ride. One time he honked at cars
in front of him who were stuck in a traffic jam. No one
could move, and yet this yahoo was honking at the others for
them to get out of his way. Maybe he was honk-happy.
Taxi drivers are as bad as the bus drivers. The only
difference, really, is in the size of the vehicles.
I've only been in Busan for two months, and already I've
been on a couple of taxi rides from hell. The first ride
was when the taxi driver misunderstood where I wanted to
go. Instead of heading in a southwesterly direction,
toward Kyungsung University, he drove toward the
northeast. When I started seeing signs for Beomeosa, the
Buddhist temple outside the city (which I had already visited
twice), I knew I was in trouble. The busses and subways
were already shut down for the night (which was why I took the
taxi in the first place), and I started wondering where I
would ultimately end up that night and how I was going to
get home. What made matters worse were that all my efforts
at communicating with this guy didn't help me at all. I
tried writing the name of the university in Korean script
(wrongly, as I later found out), and my Korean phrasebook was
absolutely no help at all. The man did lend me a cell
phone, and I tried calling my institute's assistant director,
who is fluent in both Korean and English. However, I
couldn't reach her on the phone, only getting some Korean man
whom, at 1:30 in the morning, must have wondered who the heck
"Colleen" was. After about 25 minutes of travel, I
finally said quietly, "You're going the wrong way."
Perhaps he had heard that before from other westerners or
maybe he understood the despair in my voice. Either way,
he pulled over to the side of the road where some Korean
university students were walking. I told them where I
wanted to go, and they gave him the proper directions. He
banged his head with his hand a couple of times, letting me know
in that universal gesture that "yes, I am an idiot," to which I
could only completely agree. Finally, I arrived home,
almost an hour after I first started and 20,000 won poorer
(he actually gave me a 15,000 won discount; however, a normal
ride home only costs 4,500 won).
Then, just the other night, I had another terrible taxi
ride. This guy took me home the right way, but he was
really aggressive behind the wheel. He whipped us from
lane to lane, and several times I had to hold onto the front
seat in order to keep steady. Just before I got home,
another taxi cut in front of my driver. My driver, pissed
at this other guy, swung around and cut in front of him. (Which,
of course, placed me in the center of any accident should we get
rear-ended.) The other guy got pissed himself, and he
swung around to my driver's left. Both men opened
their windows (we're now at a red light), and both started
cursing at each other. Seconds earlier, I had been
frightened to death of being in an accident; now I couldn't help
but laugh at these two guys.
The motorcyclists here are pretty similar to most other
motorcyclists around the world. They like to drive between
the lanes whenever they can, although I've seen more than a few
of them drive by me on the sidewalks. The other night was
pretty strange for me. One minute, I saw three guys riding
a motor scooter together. Not a motorcycle, mind you, but
a smaller motor scooter. No sooner had I finished shaking
my head, wondering how the heck the third guy was able to
hang on, when a motorcycle with two people on it came down
the road with their headlight off. This is at one
a.m. By the way, none of the five people were wearing a
helmet.
Speaking of motorcycle helmets, Koreans wear some interesting
fashions. There are a few guys who wear a helmet that is
very similar in shape to the Nazi helmet of World War II.
Just paint 'em black (if they aren't already), put a couple of
SS stickers on the sides, and voila! Instant Nazi
helmets! The other motorcycle helmet fashion this year is
fins. They're regular motorcycle helmets, but they sport
either two or four fins on the top. I have no idea what
purpose they might serve or if they're just an aesthetic
design. Either way, I'm almost tempted to buy a
four-fin helmet just so I can take it back to America and
turn some heads. (Of course, then I'd have to learn how to
ride a motorcycle.)
I've been pretty hard on the Korean drivers in this essay,
and I do want to say that not every Korean drives badly.
I've had a number of taxi and bus drivers who have been very
good. Also, the few times I've ridden with other people in
cars (like the Korean employees at my institute), they've been
very good drivers as well.
One last story, and I include it only because it happened on
the bus. I was sitting down in one of the seats, putting
photos into a new photo album, when a high school girl standing
next to me began saying "I love you, I love you . . ." over and
over again. I had no idea who she was talking to, but I
decided to say to her, "I love you too." This embarrassed
the heck out of her, and the three friends who were with her
burst out laughing. After a few seconds of turning her
back to me, she turned around and said, "I'm sorry." I
went back to working on my photo album, but just before she got
off the bus she again said, "I love you."
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