The foreigner picture obsession

Alright, I knew that Asians in general love everything Western/American. But sometimes their love goes a little far.

A few days ago I was walking back to my hotel with two of my friends when we were stopped by a man with hearts in his eyes. A Korean man became fascinated with my good friend Andrea and actually followed us to the store where we stopped to get ice cream. He expressed how he felt about Andrea by saying that she was beautiful in Korean over and over again. Then he proceeded to get her number and said "I know you have a boyfriend, so I just want to be your friend! We could go out for drinks sometime." Andrea wound up giving him a fake e-mail address and sent him on his way. The guy and his friend wound up saying thank you and didn't bother us anymore. Korea is a pretty safe place and the guys clearly knew not to overstep their boundaries.

The next day we returned to training, our boss asked us if the man thought Andrea was Russian. Apparently, there is a huge underground chain of Russian prostitutes in Korea.

A step down from the love obsessed Korean lies the pretty normal tourist or Korean that loves taking pictures with Westerners. Most people would think that this category of people is mainly young boys or middle aged men. But no, as I found out on my second day here even older generations have the guts to take pictures with me and my friends! In the picture above a man confronted us in front of The Site of Bosingak (Belfry) and took our picture with his group of much older women! Because the entire process took so long he was nice enough to e-mail me the photo the very same day as a thank you!

In conclusion, most of the picture goers are pretty normal people that are just happy to see some long legs or blonde hair. But every once in a while you will get a love obsessed guy that will invite you out for some drinks.