I think my boyfriend is famous in Korea. We’ll get to that in a minute.

Last Saturday my boyfriend and I went on an adventure day thanks to a great daily deal. We were part of a group of overseas tourists in our own country which I found interesting and an eye opener. I haven’t had Sydney explained to me like an overseas traveller and I did not know that Gosford is pretty much only famous for carpooling… i’m sure it must be known for something else??

I love observing people and when we were enjoying our dolphin watching cruise it seemed that other people liked observing us too. I couldn’t help but notice a group of middle aged Korean ladies at a table in front of us clad with the brightest tracksuits i’ve ever seen. After we’d been sitting a little while Mark says to me, “I think that lady is filming me” and it was in fact true, one of the Korean ladies was holding her camera in the direction of Mark with the red light on and staying very still, I could put this down to coincidence except the only camera worthy thing behind Mark was in fact a wall. We had a bit of a giggle and kept on chatting. The next thing we know one of the Korean women had got up, approached our table and sat down next to Mark without saying a word, feeling quite awkward I looked at her Mark looked at me and the rest of fluro tracksuit bunch were looking at us all… with cameras.

The little lady sitting next to Mark edged closer and closer to him and one of her friends had the camera ready to take a photo. Now this could have been a truly awkward moment (well it was anyway) but instead of questioning and backing away Mark with his ever so down to earth nature and charm put his arm around her to take the photo and this absolutely made her day. She squealed in delight and grabbed at Mark’s hand like he was a rock star, I couldn’t help but laugh. You could not wipe the smile off her face. Then she got up and went back to her friends and they all thought it was hilarious and wonderful. What had just happened??

The remarkable thing was that it was all done with no verbal communication. Mark was able to make someone’s day without saying a word.

Then our little friend returned about 30 minutes later with a packet of, well to be honest I still don’t know what they were, super fried crisp things with cinnamon. The Korean version of chips! She came up to our table and offered us some, we both politely took one and said thank you, then the lady grabbed Mark’s hand and tipped a sizeable amount in it. She had just made his day in return, he thought they tasted great. Again all done without any verbal communication at all.

So what had happened? Were we the target of some social experimentation? A joke maybe? Or is Mark truly famous in Korea? Either way it made  me have a think, it does not take a lot of effort to be nice to people. Something that is so mundane such as opening a door for someone, smiling at a stranger, letting someone with less items than you go ahead at the supermarket could make a huge impact.

Be nice and open minded to others, you never know you just might be making their day 😉

Final thought – I wonder if Mark ends up on Youtube or in a Korean tabloid magazine.

 

 

picture used courtesy of ellohollywood