No means Yes, Again

No, in Korean is pronounced aneio, which sounds almost the same as “ring” in Spanish if you happen to know that word. As luck would have it, though, it is also similar to ano in Slovak, which means yes. Ano is pronounced, “ahhhh, no” as in do you want another glass of wine? Let me think about that. No, I had better not, but in your hesitation you say yes. Yes, on the other hand, is pronounced ne – just one short syllable. No, in Slovak, is nie, pronounced the same as yes in Korean except with a small stutter between the n and ie making the word sound more like “nnn-yeah” in one long syllable. To put it bluntly, no is yes and yes is no.

Walking home from work it started to rain. A woman with an umbrella stopped and asked me if I wanted to share her cover. Well, she said something in Korean and pointed to the umbrella then started to walk with me. I said ne, thinking it means no instead of yes. But, as a true klutz I’m saying yes and pointing to my hat and walking away from her. Hmmmm, I’m confusing myself.

But this is a nice example of just how sharing people are here. That is until they get behind the bulk of metal that are cars and all kindness seems to dissipate. My neighborhood is a jungle of small 4 and 5 story apartments (12 stories seems the norm) and uniquely enough, no two buildings are the same (which is also not the norm as the rest of the apartment blocks look more like the Communist Bloc). In an almost perfect grid, narrow streets separate us from our neighbors and come night cars are parked and double parked and even triple parked so one can barely drive down a road, that are two way. So, if you happen to be going down a road and come across a car driving the other direction, one would logically think that one of the cars would back up. That unfortunately does not seem the case. Here, both cars end up waiting. And waiting. Traffic backs up in both directions making the possibility of backing up near impossible.

On the night I arrived I was in one of these said cars. The oncoming car, which would have only had to back up 50 meters or so, refused, and after a long wait, my driver and I backed up so the other could pull into an extremely narrow driveway. This process required an eight-point turn as the roads are narrow and blocked, and after about five minutes, the car had successfully gotten out of our way so the traffic behind him could back up.

Driving in general is sketchy. Walking across the street is probably the most dangerous thing I will do here. Unless I keep confusing people with my superior language skills, in which case, I have no idea what will be.