About a year and a half ago, I was nearly involved in a violent incident on the subway. I like to think that I was this close to just Ending some drunken scum who harassing me, but in reality I was likely closer to either getting my ass kicked or arrested. Thankfully, there was a magical Super Ajumma to save me from both myself, and that tragic waste of carbon and oxygen that was the Soju Man. Since that day, ajummas have pretty much been my favorite people (that is, until I moved to Seomyeon and started hating absolutely everybody).
While I've read quite a few horrific stories of this sort (and worse) on the Internet, until a couple of weeks ago my subway encounter was the worst of this nature that I'd heard first hand. Then, a friend of mine decided to put my weak look-what-almost-happened version of events to shame. I'm going to call her Nata Tat, because she totally digs that.
Nata Tat was riding the subway to Hadan (which may as well be on another planet) from Seomyeon (which shouldn't be on any planet). This usually takes her something like 45 minutes, calls for a book, and is an uneventful ride. Unless Drunk finds you.
Around 1pm, a charmingly drunk fellow stumbled into Nata Tat's subway car, cause that's just how some folks like to start their day. Personally, whenever drunk garbage stumbles into my space, I'm immediately on edge, with clenched fists and a readiness to break. Consider this the result of two years of regular harassment at the hands of random drunk men. Or an unhealthy reaction stemming from my broken psyche. Whatever it is, Nata Tat and I don't do crazy in the same way. She probably would have barely noticed him and continued with whatever thought it was she was having at the time, had Drunk not decided that she had a target on her cheek.
When the charming drunk fellow stumbled over to Nata Tat to scream in her face and follow it up with a full arm white trash style smack across the cheek, her reaction was what I would expect from most - shock. The man was set to continue berating her, when out of nowhere jumped in Super Ajumma, ready to save the day. With her gigantic purse, Super Ajumma whacked the man into submission, following it up with a verbal assault that had him in tears. Before Nata Tat could even piece together what the crap had just happened, she was being ushered into the special seating by the Super Ajumma, who's purpose in life is, seemingly, to make ours just a little bit safer.
Sadly, Nata Tat did not have a black eye to back up her story. Her word was enough, of course, if for no other reason than absolutely none of her tale was even remotely unbelievable. Of course there was a repugnantly drunk man on the subway at 1pm. Of course he decided to target the only foreigner on the train. And of course there was a wonderful, strong woman willing to stand up for what is right and smack the shit out of his pitiful existence. This is where we are.
The Ajusave. It's a thing. Cherish it.
4 comments:
My friend has has turned the word "ajoshhi" into a verb. He texted me a bit back while he was on the train and said, "I'm getting ajosshi'd."
I knew EXACTLY what he was talking about.
I like it. I might use it. Ajusave was stolen from a friend of mine, who is no longer with us (in Korea). I thought of changing it, but nothing else rolled off the tongue quite that well. "Ajumma-d" works pretty well for the negative behaviour associated with my favorite friends, I suppose.
Nice post. For me, it's from both ajeoshis AND ajumas! It's funny to hear other people are having similar fun in Seomyeon.
love it. my friend has coined the term "garajoshhi" referring to the ajosshis whose sole purpose in life is to hurry you into the garage, because dammit, there's never a line.
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