Have you ever heard of the movie Six Degrees of Separation?  The concept is that you are no more than six people from anyone in the world.  I am beginning to wonder how true that might be after this past trip to JeJu.

There are a few things that occur when you live in a foreign country where people look totally different from you.  The first is that because your appearance is so different you become a spot of fascination for the people of that country especially in areas where westerners are not seen on a daily basis.  The second is that you to develop foreigner  fascination and a propensity to talk to strangers who look like you.  Mainly  because you are looking for people who you can relate to.  This fascination can bring you to do things that are completely against the upbringing of your parents.  You forget the old rule of don't talk to strangers.  You throw caution to the wind and pick up strangers and take them with you as if they were some stray dog wondering the streets.  It is almost as if you reestablish the naive sense of childhood that everyone is a good person.

This is only true in areas of countries where foreigners are not as common and does not occur as often in bigger cities like Seoul where it is common to meet people from other countries who look like you so you continue to perform the ritual of ignoring those around you.

When we were on Jeju you can sort of tell who were the foreigners from the larger cities with larger foreigner populations and who were the foreigners from the cities with fewer foreigners.  How you ask?  Because the foreigners from larger cities ignore the other foreigners while the  foreigners from smaller cities say hello to anyone who looks western in appearance. This of course includes us.  But in reality, I think I inherited that gene from my mom.  It has just come out more living here in Korea. 

So as we wonder the island in search of adventure, we met several people along the way.  When we were in the lava tubes on the second day we met a couple of English as a second language  (ESL) teachers from somewhere outside of Seoul.  One was a New Zealander and the other was a Canadian.  We thought they were so nice after talking to them for a half hour in the lava tubes we offered to let them ride with us and go see the sites on the east side of the island and they spent the rest of the afternoon with Chris and I.  The lava tubes was also our first meeting with a couple from Canada that we would run into several more times on the island in various areas.  They became somewhat of a running joke with Chris and I.

When we got to the beach Monday afternoon and stumbled onto our German friends and spent the afternoon with them.  As we were getting ready to leave, we ran into our waitress from the restaurant on the north side of the island from two nights before. When we reached the parking lot, I went to change into dry clothes.  When I finished I headed back towards the car to find Chris talking to a blonde women.  Chris was asking her where she was from she said "the US."  Chris then asked "which state?"  She said "Michigan."  Chris said "oh really, What area?" She said "just north of Detroit."  Chris said "really, can you be more specific?"  She said "Rochester."  Chris laughed and told her that we were from Troy.  She said that I looked familiar and asked if we had ever been to Bahama Breeze in Troy where she used to be a waitress.  Chris laughed and said "yes, that's about a mile from our house."  Small world.  We renamed the beach waitress beach at that point.  The next day we ran into her again at the same beach.  Half way around the world and you meet someone who waited on you and remembers you.  It's just funny. 

On Thursday morning, we were in the airport waiting in line to check in.  We decided to clean out some trash from a side pocket of our carry-on luggage.  I went to find a trash can to throw out the trash when low and behold I saw the Canadian couple that we had run into several times. This time I had to laugh.  We exchanged Hellos and I had to ask jokingly " Is my mother paying you to follow us?  Am I not writing home enough?"  They laughed. Turns out that they were on the same flight as Chris and I to Cheungju.  What gets even funnier is that they also live in Daejeon.  We ended up giving them a ride back to Daejeon.

So you think this is where it would end but no there is one more oddity happened.   We get on the plane with the Canadian couple and snag a couple of the free newspapers that are in English on our way on the plane.  We tell our new friends that we will meet them when we get off and sit down.  Both Chris and I are ecstatic to have an English paper to read because they are hard to come by here unless you are at an airport or the train station. So about half an hour into the flight Chris finishes his newspaper.  The person next to him asks "Can I borrow that?"  in perfect English.  Chris then realizes that oh hey look we are sitting next to a foreigner.  Chris and I both start talking to her.  She is from Prince Edward Island in Canada.  She also lives in Daejeon.  She asked if we wanted to share a cab.  We said "well, actually we got a car at the airport. But, hey if you want we got room for one more in the back if you don't mind sitting with two other Canadians."  So we get to the airport and gather up our luggage and our new Canadian friends and head back to Daejeon exchanging stories and talking about what we miss from home.  I know, picking up strangers off the street or in a plane that you don't know can be dangerous in the US but for some reason it seems ok here at least in the areas where there are not as many foreigners.  I think it's because when you live in the areas with smaller foreign populations you are just looking to connect with someone and looking to find someone whose culture and train of thought are similar to yours as a way to get through the craziness of day to day life.  You look for people who have figured out how to cope with the language barrier. And who simply understand you when you want to use slang and not have to explain it.  I realize for many who read this you may think we are a little nuts with all the kidnappings and terrorist alerts but,  there is something about being here in this culture that just makes feel safe to open yourself up to the vulnerability of it. People here look out for each other.  The community is united in looking out for their neighbor. Foreigners and Koreans look out for foreigners.  It's nice.

I think Chris and I are lucky to be living in a community where the foreigners say hello to each other on the street and the Koreans look out for you to make sure you are ok because you are a foreigner.    I miss this in American culture.  Somewhere along the way we have lost part of this feeling of being part of a community.  We need to figure out a way to get it back.