A moment of kindness

Just when I started to feel the chill of Korean Streets, I was shaken out of it with the simplicity of kindness.

For two days now, I have been trying to make an international direct call from a phone booth. I bought a phone card and followed the directions on the inside of the phone booth, but nothing was working. I thought perhaps it was the type of phone booth, so I was on the mission of testing out EVERY booth that I walked by. Still, nothing. I would get 5 digits into the process and the operator would come on. For all I know she could have been saying, “Hang up the phone you idiot and try your call again.” I really had no clue and the more phone booths I tried, the more frustrated I became.

Finally tonight, on my way home from the 7-11 (pronounced seben eleben) I saw another phone booth and tried my luck yet again—of course I had none. I noticed a man standing outside of his shop and flagged him over. Just as I put my hand down, I realized I had no idea what I was about to say. So I pointed to the instructions on how to make an international call and he told me “Gong gong il.” Translation: “zero-zero-one.” Our conversation, if you can even call it that, consisted of me speaking English with a lot of pointing and gestures while the man spoke a lot of Korean with demure undistinguishable gestures.

Suddenly his wife came by to join us for silent support as her husband dialed gong-gong-il and then I punched in the rest of the digits. I guess he got the same message I was getting and said, “Canada number no.” The next thing I knew was the tiny yet pushy wife grabbed her husband’s arm and pulled him out of the booth and she made her way in. She grabbed a coin out of my hand and dialed a few digits. She was speaking Korean and suddenly motioned for a pen. I didn’t have one, so I mimicked the gesture to the husband who then quickly disappeared and returned with a pad of paper and pen. The wife snatched the pen, did a lot of bows to the invisible operator, said thanks, wrote down the number and hung up. She then grabbed more coins from my palm and dialed the number from the pad of paper. Soon enough she was talking Korean and then the phone was stuffed into my hand. She motioned to me to talk.

Dumfounded and unsure what was happening I hesitated for a moment when finally I said, “Uh, do you speak English?” The operator replied that she could and so I began to explain the situation. Basically it came down to the fact I had the wrong phone card. I was dialing the right digits and using the right phone booths, but it just came down to the card. Voila! Problem solved.

I hung up the phone and turned to my Korean phone guides. I placed my hand on my heart, said thank you in the best Korean I could muster and did a bow. The husband and wife team bowed back. I waved and smiled and they mimicked my gesture.

I must admit the timing was perfect. The concrete sprawl and neon of Daegu is less than impressive, but those two strangers and their random act of kindness jolted me out of the negative hole that seemed to be swallowing me up.