One Man Dog

The craziest thing just happened to me. I was walking down the sidewalk with Maya and a bus stopped next to us. The door opened, and the driver gave me a thumbs up. This is not unusual. A lot of Koreans like Maya. People often stop and ask us about her in limited English or snap pictures on their phones. Bobby said that a boy said, “like tiger” to him once, and I think that explains it. Korean art is full of images of tigers; maybe Maya is fascinating because her brindle patterning resembles tiger stripes.

Anyways, this guy was persistent. He just inched along with the door open. Finally, he stopped the bus, got out, and said, “one man dog!” I smiled, nodded, and said “yeah.” (I used to try so hard to understand people who were trying to communicate with me, but not so much anymore). He pulled out his phone, made a call, and handed it to me. The person on the other end was his daughter. She told me her father wanted to know if I wanted to “exchange” my dog. I thought perhaps something was lost in translation, so I said, “I'm sorry, I don't understand.” She told me that her father had a Jindo dog and wanted to know if I would to exchange!

I have a friend whom I run into on the mountain sometimes. Her name is Min. She is in her forties, unmarried, and has a boy haircut. She tells me that she is unhappy here and wants to move to Europe or America. Given the pressure to conform I see around me, I'm not surprised that she's eager to leave. I can only imagine how friends and family deal with someone who has the nerve to be different. She tells me she had two dogs that she loved dearly, and both died last year. She buried them on the mountain, as many Koreans do with their family members. She says she does not like the way Koreans feel about dogs, and that her dog's grave is constantly being defaced by someone.

The encounter with the bus driver was one of those bizarre occurrences that I am not sure is unusual. It is certainly the most unusual request I have had, and I can see what Min means when she says Koreans treat dogs differently. There is an eight story animal hospital near Camp Walker, so clearly some Koreans see their pets as family members. Others apparently don't! I wonder how many folks around here exchange their dogs.

A final thought, then I'm done speculating. It's an unfortunate but unavoidable truth that every interaction between two people from different cultures takes on an inflated significance. That guy could have been crazy, but to me, he spoke for all Koreans. I can only imagine what it's like when foreigners come into America and run into some of our weirdos. There are probably folks out there who think that all Americans preach from street corners.