The Frightener

I made a child vomit.

Maybe I should back up a bit.

I am 6 feet 2 inches tall. I have a beard, longish shaggy hair, and a large body. I weigh around 250 pounds.

I am, quite simply, big and hairy.

Most Koreans, I have noticed, are not.

To say I am somewhat of a curiosity where I live is akin to saying the first "stove pipe" hat (popularized by Lincoln) ever worn in public was a curiosity. There are reports of women screaming and fainting, of children running away crying, frightened.

No reports of kids vomiting, however, so I'm one up on that brave hat pioneer.

It is, for lack of a better phrase, so weird to walk down the street and have people point and stare at you.

Or to have high school kids try to scare their friends by shoving them into your path.

Or to have youngsters scream in fright at the first sight of you, and run to hide behind their mothers' legs.

The frightened looks.

The stares.

The shocked double-takes.

The pointing fingers.

Okay, I know how paranoid this sounds and, honestly, if it happened only a few times, I wouldn't think twice about it.

But it has happened every single day that I've been here (154 of 'em, but who's counting?). Most days, three or four times.

Occasionally, a brave soul will actually yell "HELLO!!" at you, only to giggle hysterically (in every sense of the word) and run away when you greet them back; it's like some incredibly insane game of "Ding-Dong-Ditch."

It's beginning to annoy me.

There's a neat little place that opened up recently across the street from the hogwan I teach at. They make decent hamburgers and the smoothest, best-tasting ice cream I've ever had. In Korea. It's hardly ever crowded, so, whenever I go in, I always have my choice of seats.

I like to sit near the big window in front; the light there is really nice (especially so if you're writing a travel column, longhand, in a school notebook), and I love to look out onto the sidewalk and watch as Life In Korea walks by.

Of course, that means that other people can look in, too.

There have been many a time when I have been minding my own business, enjoying my Big Joe Deluxe Cheese (Koreans are not big on prepositions), and I look out the window--

--and notice I have an audience.

Oh wow. I just looked. I have one right now. As I'm writing this, I'm sitting in my favorite spot, and a girl, maybe 8 or 9 years old, has come right up to the glass. She's staring at me. An American Aquarium.

I just looked again--and she stuck her tongue out at me. She's now running back to join her two other friends.

I swear I do nothing to provoke this.

It all came to a head last week with the upchucking girl.

You knew I'd get back to her sooner or later, didn't you?

I was walking through one of the zillions of open-air markets around town, just checking things out: fruits and vegetables, bootleg Simpsons and Chicago Bulls t-shirts, tins of Spam and Kool-Aid that look suspiciously like they were smuggled off of the nearest base. Just passing through, you know?

I saw two young girls, dressed alike, standing at one of the myriad carts that sell food. They both had meat-things on wooden sticks. One girl noticed me, poked her friend, and pointed.

Her friend looked at me, her eyes grew tremendously wide, and her lunch made an ubrupt U-turn onto the pavement.

It was that fast.

Something snapped inside me; a booming voice (sounding somewhat like Charlton Heston) rang out, "Enough is enough!"

Since then, I take my revenge wherever I can.

If somebody points at me, I point back. Vigorously.

If somebody stares, I stare back. Viciously.

If somebody is frightened, I stalk them. Menacingly.

It does nothing to ease anti-Yankee sentiment, but it's a hell of a lot of fun.

I haven't had anybody vomit again, but if they do, I hope they're not wearing their good shoes. I'm more than up to the challenge.

I am, after all, an American.