Helpful Koreans

Yesterday I wrote about Korea’s problem with suicide. It’s a very serious problem, but it’s not the whole story of the Korean people and their society. There are also many positive things about Korea, one of which being that the Korean people are very helpful and generous to foreigners like myself. I was in Korea for only about ten days, but during that short time I regularly had locals going out of their way to assist me if it looked like I needed the help. Probably the best example of this was when I was on Jeju Island and couldn’t get my car’s GPS to locate a particular beach that I was trying to get to. I was in a parking lot trying unsuccessfully to get a route to that beach when a young Korean man walked up to my car and asked if I needed assistance. After explaining my predicament he offered to help and then typed in the proper Korean name of the beach in my GPS, which got me the route I needed. Seriously, instances like this happened enough times that I could swear that at least some portion of the Korean population is on patrol for foreigners needing help.