We’ve been wandering the streets of Seoul and Busan, and occasionally people will stop and try to communicate with us. Of course, since I am yellow, they all just assume I’m Korean, so they start speaking to me in rapid fire Korean. I’ve successfully learned only about a dozen phrases for survival on this trip (this ranges from “hello,” “goodbye,” “thank you,” “delicious,” to “where is the bathroom?” “can you bring me water?”, “can you take me to (fill in the blank)?”). Any other word I recognize is from the Korean dramas I watched during my college days, or from its similarity to English or Chinese (since we all know that Korean is based on Chinese regardless of what any Korean person wants to tell you).

The few people who have tried to talk to us, ranging from a random woman at the 7-Eleven ATM to the woman serving us at a pojangmacha (outdoor eatery where you sit around a cooking station on little stools and eat), have all indicated that had all thought I looked Korean and were surprised I was not. Their next guess is always Chinese, but I tell them I’m from “America,” and they say their long “oooohs.” In Vietnam, everyone thought I was Vietnamese (they were 1/4 correct). Everyone in Japan thought I was Japanese. The people here think I’m Korean. The general theme is that all yellow people think that all other yellow people are their yellow people. It has little to do with what I really look like and more to do with their perceptions of people and the world.

Three of them so far have pointed at Chris and said to me, “Chingu (friend)?” “Anyong (no),” I respond. Not knowing what the Korean term for husband is, I make a hand motion indicating that we’re together. Their eyes always widen and they seem so surprised. I guess the idea of a yellow person being with a brown person is surprising and intriguing to them. It’s more funny to me that they first assume we’re only friends.