Saturday, January 9, 2010

Ah ... Taxi drivers. :)

Interesting day today.

After lunch Stig and I were going to Dunkin Donuts. The crosswalk there is usually a cluster-fuck. It is the crosswalk I posted pictures of the car driving across the crosswalk. Today was no different.

When we went to cross the taxis had the crosswalk so blocked you had to walk on the road either side around them to cross. There was even a taxi on the OUSTISDE blocking the crosswalk (waiting to get in the taxi queue.) So I yelled at them for blocking the crosswalk. I guess the one of the outside couldn't handle being chastised by a foreigner. He leaned out his window shouting gaeseki this ... shepalnom that ... blah blah blah. My reply was to flip him the bird.

He bounded out of his taxi all pissed off. Keep in mind his taxi is STILL on the road, blocking a lane of traffic AND the crosswalk. He keeps blathering and swearing in Korean. What could I say? I told him I don't give a shit. This is a road not a fucking parking lot. He kept blathering. I told him I didn't understand (in Korean) and got off the road. You would think it ended there wouldn't you?

You would be wrong. This is Korea and he is an adjusshi with a bloated amount of self-importance. And I am but a dirty foreigner who insulted him and dared to suggest that he is not entitled to block the crosswalk and the street. He keeps standing ON THE ROAD with his cab there BLOCKING a lane of traffic yelling and whining. Posturing and pouting. Yelling at me. Yelling at the people waiting for the next green to cross. He is frothing at the mouth pointing at the road and the taxi queue in the distance. What can I say ... had to interject again. I looked at him and said I don't care. The road isn't a parking lot. With a smile.

Evidently he didn't like that. His vitriol got stronger and stronger. From this point on every other word was gaeseki. Everytime he paused I would just smile, chuckle, shrug my shoulders and say I don't care. (I think he understood that. Maybe he is a 2NE1 fan?) He stayed out IN TRAFFIC for a good 5+ minutes going on and on. Then he got in his taxi and drove off.

A minute or two later he was charging down the sidewalk screaming and yelling. Basically, he became a typical posturing adjusshi. Yelling, pointing, yelling at the people around him, raising a fist. (If you have ever seen Koreans fight it usually involves 20 minutes of posturing. Cocking a fist back every so often. Which usually causes them a lot of grief when they pull this bullshit with foreigners. You cock your fist back as if throwing a punch and most foreigners will flatten you. Seen quite a few Koreans get knocked on their ass this way. Their shocked expressions are priceless. They can't believe they were hit.)

He went on for about 5 minutes. At one point he hauled out his cell phone and threatened to call the police. Sweet. I dared him to do it. I even double dog dared him. Funny how quickly people back away from a hollow threat. He put the phone away and went back to swearing and screaming. I told him I would call the cops if he didn't. So I aksed Stig to go into Dunkins and get the manager to call the cops. (The manager there speaks English well.) In Korean I let him know the cops were being called. Well in broken Korean. He didn't like that.

After a couple more minutes of invective he went out onto the street ranting to other cabbies. Stig figured he was trying to get a lynch mob together. :) He kept this up for a few minutes. The other cabbies pretty much ignored him. Then he ranted on the sidewalk for another minute or so before mooking off to his cab.

The police showed up about 10 minutes after he left. The manager talked to them about what happened. She let them know he had left. They hoped I understood that not all Koreans are like him. (Yeah ... yeah ... I hate when they do that but at least they didn't apologize for him.)

Now I don't usually advise calling the police in Korea. 9 times out of 10 it backfires on you. (Ask Metropolitician.) This was my 1 in 10 and I doubt I will ever play that card again. I figured it would make the mook leave and it did. When I told him the police were being called he saw Stig in talking to the manager, and the manager on the phone. That is when he started backing off. (Unlike him I don't make idle threats. If i say I am gonna do it ... I do it.)

All that was left to do was sit out with a coffee and chuckle at the stupidity of the mook. I didn't want to leave my scooter out there alone just in case the asshat did come back and tried to fuck with it.

There was some mookishness after that. Some ass left his chair on the patio and then tried sitting on my scooter. Another driver parked blocking the crosswalk and then drove through/across the crosswalk. The usual idiocy.

If this happened back home I would have put him on his ass the first time he cocked his fist. (In Korea it isn't worth hitting them unless you absofuckinglutely have to because win or lose the fight you will always lose when they come after you for blood money.) He kept thrusting his finger at me too. If he had touched me, I would have popped him one regardless. But I knew he wouldn't ... he was just a posturing coward. I think my smiling kept pissing him off too. Which was what I hoped for. :)

13 comments:

  1. Ah! You are such an evil.

    Pissing off a pissed off ajosshi. :)

    Will he commit suicide for getting humiliated by a dirty waygookin? I wonder what do such ajosshis feel? After all they were humiliated by a "foreigner".

    May God (or someone) give him strength.

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  2. Ajay

    Heh ... what can I say. If I thought he would react that way I would have started off by flipping the bird and not wasting my time using my poor Korean. :)

    You had to see his face. I thought he was going to stroke out a few times. (The bad stroke out not the icky creepy kind Adjosshis sometimes do in public.) He really didn't like it when I smiled and laughed at him while he was trying to threaten me. :)

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  3. I have bruises on my knuckles once every two months in average. I just love the glare they have any time they push be so much that I'm obliged to punch them in legitimate defence. These ones are too fresh, though, and it hurts me when I type. Keep it a secret, please bro ;-)

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  4. Mister Baekseju

    The only problem with that is there is no self defense law in Korea. Who ever is injured the most is considered the aggrieved party in Korea.

    But I will keep your secret. :)

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  5. Mike in Korea

    Thanks. Unfortunately I am not always as funny as I think I am.

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  6. Adjussis are fucking dickholes sometimes. I find if you walk really fast towards them they run away. Which is funny because I'm a skinny white guy and wouldn't dare try that anywhere else.

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  7. KRD

    Yeah. One Stig and I were smoking cigars in front of a convenience store. A drunken adjussi came up and started blathering. He started jabbing his finger at me in the air. I had enough and was going to go into the store to see if the owner could make him fuck off. When I stood up ... damn ... never saw a drunk move backwards that quickly in my life. His arms were flailing. He was bending backwards. It was a matrix moment. :)

    He stayed about 3 meters away yelling. Then we figured out what he was saying in between swearing. 1500 won ... cigarettes. He wanted us to give him cig money.

    He ended up following after a couple yelling at them. A few seconds later we heard a woman SCREAMING. And then silence. She shut the guy up. :)

    I wouldn't be surprised if the guy was drunk yesterday. Still getting over a sinus infection so my sense of smell is nil to shot so I didn't smell anything.

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  8. While on the subject of taxi drivers drunk or otherwise...

    One of my old co-workers had a lot of bad experiences with Korean cabbies. If they weren't trying to grab her tits they were hitting on her or otherwise pestering her. (One week she had 3 cabbies reach around and squeeze her tits. She stopped using taxis unless there was someone else with her.)

    Our new teacher, the Korean-Canadian, also refuses to use taxis unless with other people. Her first week in Korea she had several cabbies who reeked of soju. They, and non soju reeking ones, kept propositioning her for sex or making perverted comments. The kicker for her was the soju reeking pervert who kept going the wrong direction and talking about having breakfast and sex with her. Now she uses the bus.

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  9. Next time you get in a similar situation with a Korean driver, write down (or at least pretend to) his license place. He'll shit in his pants.

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  10. (That is, of course, if you are close to your place/workplace/in a crowded place. Otherwise, use solution "knuckles in the jaws". So far, none has even filed a complaint about me.)

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  11. I will file both suggestions away. They are good. :)

    I never thought of it until after the fact but I should have taken a pic of his cab and/or him. Or asked Stig too. Next time ... next time. Sadly, being Korea there probably will be a next time too.

    I still can't help but laugh when I think of the guys face as he was ranting. I am surprised he didn't pop a vein.

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