This morning I rode the bus into work and it let me off across the road from the school. My coworker and I saw that no one was coming and so I walked across. She told me I shouldn't do that in front of students or Koreans. I guess I was being a bad role model. And it is true: Koreans rarely jaywalk. I should have waited for the little green man to light up. I dismissed the whole thing quickly, saying it's "a cultural thing and they will understand."
After school that night I was talking to one of my friends, a head teacher who was also there late. Somehow we went from pronunciation of the word "yield" to talking about driving. She started laughing about how Americans always wait for the stoplight to turn green before going, even when there is no one coming. I told her about the fear of cops and the subject soon changed to my experiences being pulled over and her one experience with a breathalyzer. As it does with English teachers, this lead to a discussion of how the word is a portmanteau of "breath" and "analyzer", just like "chocoholic" is from "chocolate" and "alcoholic." She told me they have portmanteaus in Korean as well and the world once again seemed a smaller and friendlier place for me.
It wasn't until I was at the corner across from my apartment that stoplights once again crossed my mind. There I was, the red hand glowing across the street, doing my routine check to see if it was safe. It was. I jogged along and suddenly everything came into focus. Once again, the opposite side of the world sometimes requires opposite thinking.
American cars respect the red light. Korean pedestrians respect the red hand. Meanwhile, Cambodia has neither.
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