Something a bit more uplifting...

After the pants debacle we went to Yongsan and bought a few things, including my awesome Nintendo DS (that I love more than I expected to even). On the way home afterward the subway was really crowded so we were standing up. There was a little girl with her mother sitting over in the section reserved for the elderly, disabled and pregnant women. She was wandering around a bit and couldn't have been older than 4 or 5 years old. She seemed like she was walking with no purpose until the ajumma beside me (in Korean) told me, "She wants you to go with her and sit down". I was a bit taken aback and not sure I'd understood correctly so I just smiled. Sure enough, the little girl came ambling back and when I looked at her she gestured to me to follow her.

At first I expected that she or her mother were learning English and wanted to practice on a native monkey, I mean speaker, but I quickly realized that neither spoke a word. I sat beside her on the small bench and noticed there was a lot of interest from the other passengers about our situation. Seems that this little girl was extremely spunky and playful and just wanted to hang out with me! I know it's probably because I looked interesting and foreign but I listened carefully and didn't hear any references to my "waegukin" status. Heck, they didn't even ask me where I'm from. It was as if this little girl had sensed that I was feeling sad and wanted to cheer me up. We made funny faces, talked in broken Korean and just played in general. She even gave me one of her princess cookies. Her mom just sat there the entire time, neither encouraging or discouraging her. It was a really bizarre situation especially since she was specifically interested in me, not Matt. He came over and stood beside us and she wasn't afraid of him, just indifferent.

It's certainly not the first time that I've been given attention but this time felt different. Maybe it's because I was feeling blue and she did cheer me up. Maybe it's because she reminded me of my Little Brown babies. I don't know exactly but it was a special moment in my day that I won't forget.