If I'd read Jae's entry for today first, disaster might have been averted. Jae is a Korean who has studied in the US and has returned home. Breathlessly, she narrates the mundane detail of daily life.

Today's entry on shopping in a big store seems to bear out all those allegations I've been reading about Korean manners:

UGH...those ajummas need to learn manners... I was stuck between their carts so many times and they don't care... I was jammed and all that... What about ajussis or even guys around my age? They don't care if I were a little girl, an ajumma, a young woman, or an old lady around your grandma's age... They just push their carts toward you and they cut in lines... It was just a big, big, big mess and chaos there!!! Okay, pushing, jamming, cutting in lines...I can accept that. Why do ajummas pick up YOUR stuff from YOUR cart and touch them...and hold them...and make comments about what YOU're going to buy? I mean, they're so rude...and I was at the cashier and these 2-3 ajummas wouldn't care if I was almost done putting my stuff at the cashier or not... In fact, I was so busy trying to put all the stuff we got (and thanks mom for getting SOOOOOOO much stuff...that I had a hard time pushing the cart around) and these ajummas wouldn't put them back in our cart. I mean, we're about to pay for them and it's OUR stuff!!! Of course, they don't even ask you if they could take a look at those things that they're holding at the moment. By the time we got out of the store trying to get to the parking lot, my face turned completely red, my mouth grumbling, shaking my head. Of course, mom knew I was annoyed as hell... When we got into her car, she was asking me..."Are you angry?" I was like, "No, just annoyed, because I can't stand those rude ajummas and ajussis... I don't think I want to live here just because I don't want to grocery shop at such places...with such rude people!!!" She was just laughing and saying..."It's because you're not used to shopping here...I didn't even think it was that crowded at all this morning."