Do you remember when cars were first invented? Of course you don't. Neither do I. But I imagine that the public reacted like a little boy given his first BB gun - with unbelievable glee and excitement, leaving mass mayhem in his wake. Sort of how CT's boyfriend acted with his car.
I met CT in Gwangju yesterday. She has been up there taking an English class and wanted to have dinner with me one last time before I leave for vacation. I sat at the Gwangju Bus Terminal, going over my Korean flash cards while I waited for her class to end. Finally, my phone rang.
"Hayna, where are you?"
I slipped the flashcards into my pocket. "Outside by the stage. With the orange chairs and the big, green . . . uh . . ." My vocabulary failed at this point to describe the art deco structure erected around the stage. ". . . thing," I settled and stood up. "Where are you?"
"I'll go there," CT said and hung up.
I have accustomed myself to the fact that most Koreans do not say "goodbye" at the end of their call, seeming to just hang up mid-conversation, but it still irks me.
"Yeah, okay," I said into my cell phone, "I'll watch for you. Bye."
Seconds later, I saw CT and we met underneath the large, green arbor (?).
"My boyfriend is coming," CT said. "Is that okay? He has a car."
I nodded, instantly pleased at the fact that we wouldn't have to pay for a taxi. "Not a problem," I replied. "That is excellent."
I have met CT's boyfriend (to be known as Sonny) several times before. On the first day I met CT, Sonny drove us from the hotel at Gwangju to my new apartment in Nokdong. We have since gone to dinner several times in Nokdong and Podu, both very small towns with limited traffic. For some idiotic reason, I did not imagine that his driving would be any different in this huge city. The fact that I was staring at bumper-to-bumper traffic while waiting for him to appear did not make any impact at all. When I slid into the front seat on his tan Samsung (Samsung? Does Samsung even make cars? Don't they make, like, radios and TV's and stuff?), I actually congratulated myself on getting a spot with a seat-belt.
And then he pulled into traffic.
"Whoa!" I said, and grabbed onto the door handle.
Sonny laughed and faced me. "I good driver!" he proclaimed, using one hand to sweep his newly permed hair out of his eyes. "No worry!"
I sort of chuckled. "Right!" I agreed, subtly tightening the seat-belt.
"We'll go look at the University Campus," CT said from the back seat.
I twisted around to look at her, amazed at the way she causally sprawled against the seat, shifting her weight with the car's (erratic) movements, her hands not gripping the door in fear, but loosely holding her cell phone. She looked for all the world as though we were not destined to exit the vehicle via the windshield.
I knew from taking taxi rides in Gwangju that the rules of the road are more like suggestions here in South Korea. That may be a broad statement, but Sonny certainly displayed the Anything-To-Get-Where-I-Want-To-Go mentality that seems to afflict so many cab drivers. He wove in and out of traffic, flipped a few U-turns with no regard to oncoming traffic, ran several red lights, and - my personal favorite - drove on the WRONG side of the road to bypass four cars waiting at a red light. When we finally arrived at the University, I was ready to throw up. (I am prone to motion sickness, so I had taken some Dramamine on the bus, but Sonny's driving proved stronger than modern medicine.)
"Should we walk?" CT asked no one in particular.
"Yes!" I agreed, reaching for the door handle.
"No!" Sonny protested at the same time, and pressed the gas pedal to the floor.
They had a short conversation in Korean and then CT said, apologetically, "He will catch his train at 8:30, so we don't have time to walk."
"Okay," I said, choking down my disappointment as Sonny's car chugged up a small hill.
CT guided the tour from the back seat, "Here is the fitness club. There is the language department. Oh, look! An animal hospital! There is the Business Incubator," (I don't know and I didn't ask what a business incubator is) while Sonny drove all over campus. He dodged the students walking in the middle of the road by driving on the sidewalk. He missed a turn and drove backwards in a round-about. He willfully ignored several Do Not Enter signs (I'm not Korean, and even I know what they say!!) and drove the wrong way down a narrow, one-way street, laughing off the honks of the oncoming cars. Through it all, he kept repeating, "I good driver! No worry!" until I began to suspect he was doing so not to reassure me, but to convince himself.
"Now for dinner!" CT announced.
"Is it close by?" I asked desperately.
Of course not. Another twenty minutes of death-defying driving and I was finally able to get out of the car. I stood on solid ground and glared at Sonny across the roof of the car. I don't know if it is possible to have road rage against the driver of the vehicle you are occupying, but I had it. In spades.
Sonny puffed out his chest and smiled. "I good driver!" he said again.
It was all I could do to not pound my fist against the car while shouting, "No! You're not! You are a terrible driver!"
"Let's go eat," CT said and walked into the restaurant.
Sonny walked around the car to the restaurant door and I turned to follow. Just as my hand touched the handle of the door, I heard the screech of breaks and the honking of multiple horns. Sonny and I stepped around the car and peered down the street. A small car had decided to ignore its red light and was slowly making its way through a busy intersection by a series of stops and starts depending on which way the cars were coming. Several cars had stopped even though the green light gave them clearance to go. The car finally made it across the intersection and scurried down a side street.
I looked at Sonny.
He looked at my accusing expression and said, "See? They very bad driver. I good driver."
I said nothing, opting to practice the "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" adage.
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