Really? No, seriously. Really?

I went out with James this morning to Insadong (a rather touristy shopping street) to pick up one final Christmas present. It's a mission to get anywhere outside of Uijeongbu - I think I was on the subway or a bus for a total of 4 hours today, just to walk through Insadong for less than an hour. James and I are well aware of the common courtesy that is displayed (or severely lacking) on a subway: Always try and scootch over a bit if someone sits in an empty seat next to you. Don't talk too loudly. Don't sit in the seats of three near the end - they're reserved for the elderly and pregnant. The ajumas will bodily push you out of the way to get to that empty seat first - get used to it.

I was sitting down in a single empty seat with James standing in front of me. He'd been talking to me for a good ten minutes, in a slightly low tone of voice, as the particular car we were on was a bit quiet, but not overly so. In the middle of him telling me a story, as I'm slightly straining to hear him over the sounds of the subway car, the woman sitting next to me, a Korean, interrupts him and says something to him along the lines of "Excuse me. Please lower voice. Shhh. Too loud. Softer voice please."

James and I both looked at her for a second, speechless, and then looked at each other for another three seconds before he tried to just continue with his story in the same tone of voice. He couldn't remember where he had left off, though, and so we had a brief conversation, with her still sitting there, about how that was a rather unbelievable request, seeing as how we were both being respectfully quiet, and there was a Korean man across the car from us who was speaking quite a bit louder and was being much more disruptive, if anything, than we were. At this point neither of us cared if she understood us or not, and she got off the train about 15 minutes later.

It really surprised both of us to a large degree, and I imagine I'll be telling people about it for the next week or so. I could understand if the train had been silent, or we were talking really loudly and being rowdy or something like that. But I had been missing a word here and there of what James was saying because he was talking so softly, so I find it hard to believe that she thought we were being too loud. It's more likely that she didn't like listening to us speaking English and wanted us to stop, though her English was good enough that I don't think that was the case either. I really have no clue as to why she said it, but I sort of wish we'd actually replied to her. Maybe something like "Excuse me, but we're not being loud. The gentleman behind us, however, is. You're more than welcome to ask him to be quiet, or maybe you can move to another car. There's plenty of train here for all of us, lady."