Commuting via public transportation is common here in South Korea. The country is small, the population is big, and there just isn’t the space for vehicles like we have in Canada. Since people are so used to travelling on the subways and busses at all hours, most Koreans have adapted to be able to sleep on almost any moving object ever.
Last night, I was waiting at Sadang station, a major terminal station just outside of Seoul. It is often the last stop for late night trains, and people then have to transfer to a different train or bus. After an incredibly long day out with my friend, we were waiting for our train back to our respective cities in the suburbs of Seoul. Before our train arrived, another stopped at our platform, at its last stop. Everyone cleared out, except for one man who was fast asleep. The conductor kept making announcements to clear everyone off the train, but he wouldn’t budge. Attempting to be a Good Samaritan, I quickly stepped on the train to shake the man’s shoulder. Just as he started to wake, I could hear the familiar “WOOSH” of the doors closing behind me, trapping me on the train.
I quickly ran to the door, looking at my friend through the window, trying to find some way to get the door to open, but instead, I felt the slow lurch of the train pulling out of the station.
Naturally, this was the time the man, who smelled to be sleeping off his drunkenness instead of sleeping out of exhaustion, woke, and began to laugh at the situation.
Now, imagine being in my shoes. I speak very little Korean. It was late, and I was on a train on its way to god knows where, stuck with a drunk old man who could only laugh and never even bothered to say thanks to me for trying to wake him up.
I found an old woman wandering down the cars, sweeping up garbage, and she looked at me and exclaimed that I should have got off at the last stop. In broken Korean, I tried to explain, but she simply laughed and continued down the train. Overall, the experience with her was a little creepy.
A moment later, one of the conductors came down the train, and I immediately launched into some strange explanation of why I was on the train. I may have ended up using up to five languages, one being
hand gestures, to explain it was the old man’s fault completely and I was just being a good person. There might have been a lot of swearing out of frustration as well, because, well, they don’t speak English, it’s not like they understood anyways.
Thankfully, this conductor understood what happened, thanked me for trying to help, and explained the train would go back to Sadang and I could transfer to the train I needed. Three cheers for Mr.Conductor!
True to his word, we began rolling back to Sadang, and I met my friend and all the bystanders exactly where I left them, waiting for the train home. Amazingly, I didn’t even miss the train I was originally waiting for. But, I still will never help sleeping old men on trains again.
This was too funny.