Ella in her blog noted that she "want(ed) to know what are people saying around me!" This comes from working in foreign countries where you do not speak the language. I noted at the time that it was worse to be in a country were you did speak the language and still could not understand what was going on around you.Well, a couple of days into my trip in Korea and I have found my language peeve. It comes from being able to speak survival Korean but looking very much like a foreigner (well, I am an Aussie after all). Here, whenever I buy something or pay for it, every shop assistant, waiter or cashier either struggles for 5 minutes trying to remember how to say the amount in English or reaches for a calculator to type the amount out or swings the cash register screen around to show me the amount. Of course, simply saying "man ee chon oh baek won" would work just as well as typing out 12500 on a calculator and be a whole lot faster.
Please, give me the amount in the local language first and then if I look dumbfounded, reach for the calculator. Reaching for the calculator first makes me feel like I am stupid --- which I think I am not. Mind you, some of my friends may disagree with that :-)
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