Onions (6/12/19)

This afternoon, needing a break from studying, I decided to take a short walk. I remembered that there were a few shops a little way down the road from our neighborhood and also that we could use an extra onion for dinner. So off I went to see what I could find. There was, indeed, a little convenience-type shop down the road that had two onions in stock. They were packaged together and the price on the package said 1000 won (about a dollar). However, I did not look at the price before I went to pay. I had a 10,000 won bill in my pocket and handed it to the man at the register. I waited for some change but he didn't offer me any, he just said thank you (in Korean). I assumed that I was paying for the 'convenience' and walked out with my onions. However, on the way home I did take a look at the price tag and realized what had happened. I felt pretty stupid, but chalked it up to a learning experience.

We know four people here who are Korean by birth but now American citizens living back here in Korea for one reason or another. They've all been super helpful getting us settled and adjusted here. I texted one of them to tell her the story, thinking it would just be a funny anecdote. However, she was appalled. She couldn't believe "that someone would do that to a neighbor!" I was surprised at that reaction. First, that this sort of thing is uncommon enough to be so appalled at, and secondly that the injustice in the situation was done against a neighbor. Not a fellow human being, or a foreigner, but a neighbor. That's what made it so wrong in her estimation. I got many follow-up texts telling me the Korean phrases I needed to know to (in future) ask for a receipt, ask for change, and the words for 1000 won and 10,000 won. I am fully prepared now to try again! However, I don't think I'll try that shop...

The other two people, a couple, we told the story to were equally shocked. They have better English and assured us that this sort of thing hardly ever happens to foreigners and also very rarely to other Koreans either. They gave us the name and location of a better shop close by that "has much better and much fresher produce." At the moment we're buying most of our food on the Army base just for convenience, but I do want to eventually do more shopping locally. I'll try the recommendation, the onions I got weren't even good!

UPDATE: We had lunch with some of the friends mentioned above a few days later. After lunch one of them insisted that we drive over to the store to make things right. I really did not want to do that but it turns out that it is also very hard to say 'no' to Korean grandmas. So off to the store we went and she had a long conversation with the clerk. Since I only know a few individual words in Korean I had no idea what the conversation was about. It didn't sound angry or accusatory on either side though. At one point the clerk held up the two different bills involved thinking that maybe I wasn't familiar with the currency. By that point I was feeling so stressed out by the whole situation that I couldn't remember exactly which one I had used. In the end, however, I got 9,000 won in change (about $7.00) but I'm not totally certain I should have it!

UPDATE 2: The other couple in this story has given us some farm-fresh onions and garlic to make up for this incident too. Also, I think they had more than they can use. However, it seems to be way more than we can use either!