faith in humanity

I just returned from a late-night stroll with Hisashi and Sneha, whereupon we stumbled across a rather drunk and sad-looking girl (or perhaps more correctly, she stumbled across us). Out of concern, we followed her for a bit - okay, that sounds creepier than I intended it to - and eventually, she collapsed onto a stone bench and dissolved into loud sobs. We felt so bad that we approached her and asked, "실레지마...괜찮아요?" (translation: excuse me, but are you okay?) She shook her head at us while answering that she was fine; I asked her if we could help her, to which she again responded that she was fine. Not wanting to be any more an intrusion, we left her to herself. I desperately wanted to go buy her an ice cream or something, but was persuaded against it after realizing that it might seem really creepy and strange.

Maybe I'm a sucker, and in fact, I'm sure that I am - but nothing here has made me as sad as this girl did. The worst part was that I really wanted to help her, but due to a frustrating language barrier, my options for doing even the most basic of things was severely limited. Then again, I suppose we live in a world where even the kindest gestures can be looked upon with suspicion (Sneha opined that if some stranger brought her ice cream on the street, she would assume it was poisonous and chuck it), which makes me pretty sad for humanity. I think I just have more faith in people, which sadly makes me more vulernable to the many people whose intentions are less than pure. Sad face. Every time something like this happens, I think of that line in Memoirs of a Geisha (the book or movie): "None of us finds as much kindness in this world as we should." Sigh.

Part of me still wants to run back into the street and find her, call her a cab, and see her safely off home. But I won't. Instead, I'll just hope that tomorrow treats her better than did today.

For those of you who are more concerned with me than you are with the sad girl, I will offer that everything is fine here (I had a delicious dinner of bulgogi, a lovely beef stew - to be contrasted with Sneha's disastrous soup) and spent most of the day studying at a cafe called Beans 'n Berries. I am not much further along in catching up, but at least some of the vocab is coming along. We have plans to meet Jihye again tomorrow night(!!), which is excellent and should provide some much-needed relief from the fairly constant studying.

Jangmi out.

p.s. to address the question I have most often received, there are no pictures on this blog yet because I realized that I stupidly left my camera's battery charger at home. This week, I'm going to Yongsan to get a card phone and will try to pick one up then. Stay tuned.
p.p.s. Waffle eaten. Mission accomplished.