i am woman hear me roar

I have been meaning to talk about driving in Korea for some time now. Ken tried to tell me about it but I think you just have to experience it for yourself. However, I will try to describe some of the observations I have made since I stared driving in Korea.

First and foremost is the fact that you need to be on the defensive ALL the time. There are rules to be followed while driving but it seems like most Koreans break them ALL the time. And they seem oblivious to the fact.

I have seen a taxi try to pass a car in the middle of an intersection.

I think that the Koreans don't know that they have blinkers on their cars - they NEVER use them. However, they just LOVE their horns. You can hesitate a millisecond after a light turns green and they are already honking. Ken seems to have embraced the horn in a big way - he honks all the time now. I think it is mainly in frustration over their driving.

Even though they are honking at you to go, you need to always make sure someone isn't running the light. You will NEVER be the last car to run the red light, there will always be one or two cars behind you. I have also seen people run red lights - I am not talking about running a light, I am talking about sitting at the light and then deciding it is okay to go even though the light is still red.

U-Turns are big. It doesn't matter where you are, it seems to be okay. We saw a tour bus make a U-Turn in the middle of a busy city street in Busan. Sure it takes awhile and people are honking for you to get out of the way, but that doesn't seem to matter to them. They wanted/needed to make a U-Turn, so they did.

Parking doesn't seem to have any rules either. Apparently it is okay to park facing the wrong direction. It is okay to make a 2 lane street into a 1 lane street by parking cars on either side. And parking on sidewalks and in the middle of the road is okay too. Even on the major roads people just pull over and park wherever they want.

Nonetheless, I think I had the ultimate driving experience on Wednesday. I had taken Ken back to work after lunch so that I could have the car and go grocery shopping. On the way, I decided to stop by this little shop that we had gone to before. I was going straight down one of those little narrow streets where people are parking on either side. You just have to pull over once in awhile if you can to let people get through. People usually are polite and use common sense. You get the picture.

Well, I am halfway down a block and this black car is headed for me. I have no place to pull over and he decides to speed up and come straight for me. When we are bumper to bumper, we both stop and look at each other. He is a Korean man in his 30-40's with a dress shirt and tie on. Looking at the situation, I felt it made more sense for him to back up. He actually had a little space to pull over in. I would have to back up 2 or 3 car lengths into an intersection. So we just stared at each other a minute. Incredulously, I put my hand up and motioned for him to back up. He promptly put his hand up and motioned for ME to back up. I don't know why I did this but I shook my head NO and just stared at him. While we were having this stare off, a car came up behind me and honked a couple of times. STILL he didn't move. Then a big truck came up behind the car, so I now have 2 (or more - I couldn't see behind the truck) cars behind me. He had NO ONE behind him but yet he sat there. There was no way I could back up. My thoughts at that time where that I hoped he needed to get back to work and would move; my only activity that afternoon was going to the grocery store....I had the time to wait him out. After much honking, the driver of the truck finally got out and started walking up to us. I guess when he saw me he understood why I hadn't gotten out to confront the other driver. He went to the black car, said a few words and helped the driver back up. As I drove by, I resisted the urge to look at the driver and give him a gloating smile........
but I did start humming the Helen Reddy song,
"I am woman, hear me roar"