Oops...Did You Just Hear That?

If you're a foreigner in Korea, you're an eavesdropper. Don't be ashamed - we all do it. We're not used to living in a place where most of the conversation is in a foreign language (and, even if you do understand Korean, most of it is so fast or riddled with so much slang, that it's often hard to follow), so when you hear it, your ears naturally perk up, and you listen along.

Another thing about being a foreigner in Korea is that you also get used to not being understood by the people around you - which means you can have some pretty interesting conversations in crowds.

And sometimes there's an indescribable mix of these two phenomenons.

The scene: Siobhain, Cait, Caroline, and I are at On The Border. Being that it is a very western restaurant, the Korean/foreigner mix was pretty even. Fortunately, the four of us were in a corner. We'd been yarn shopping all day (because that's what we do), and were ordering our various courses slowly to give us time to sit there and knit (yes, we did sit at On The Border on a Saturday night and knit; haters gonna hate). The table next to us had a much faster occupation flow. When we originally sat, there was a couple sharing some queso. They were replaced by a group of Korean university students...

Then, the stars of our show walked in. Three caucasian males who weren't bad looking; however, upon closer inspection, we realized that they were orthodox Mormon (name tag and all - not sure "orthodox" is the right word..). One of us - who shall remain nameless - suggested we order a round of drinks for them. That idea was quickly vetoed (nope, definitely not by me) because we were sitting right next to them and it would seem a bit obvious. Being that we were two groups of foreigners, we of course tried to listen in onto their conversation. However, they weren't speaking English. Cait guessed Russian, and we left it at that. And, of course, we continued to eavesdrop for the occasional hint of English because, let's face it, we were curious.

(At this point I should mention two things: one, foreigners in Korea are especially curious about other foreigners who do something other than teach or serve in the military; two, although foreigners love to eavesdrop, we tend to have this mental block that keeps us from realizing that others are probably doing it to us, too.)

Sometime later, the guys all start speaking English. Very unaccented English. At this new tidbit to pique our curiosity, we of course started to listen closer. One of us (okay, me) was caught when, like an idiot, there was eye contact made during some intense information gathering.

Finally, the three men got up to leave. One of them was INSANELY CLOSE to my chair, and I kept looking over at him....well, partially because of the above mentioned curiosity....and partially because he was REALLY CLOSE TO MY YARN STASH AND OMG I'M LIKE A PROTECTIVE MOTHER BEAR. He looks over at us and says,

"How's the sewing going? Sorry if we confused you. We were practicing our Russian."

Our only response? "It's not sewing - it's knitting!" and a whole lot of laughter after they left (but, as things had proved that night, probably not when they were out of earshot).