Article 4

NOTE: Fourth article in the series I'm writing for The Communicator.

I’m pretty sure that the cab driver was drunk. At least if he was, that would explain a lot.

A few friends and I had just finished dinner. We took a new foreign teacher out to welcome him to Korea. He didn’t pay for dinner and probably won’t pay for much the first month he’s here. Foreigners stick together overseas and are surprisingly generous. Most people get dinner, drinks, movies, taxis, and lots more paid for by people they’ve just met for a month or so after arriving in Korea. The only catch is that you’re expected to cover the new folks after that.

Tired and full, we decided to call it a night early and hailed a taxi. Taxis are everywhere in Korea and are surprisingly cheap. Public transportation here is good: reliable, cheap, and plentiful. It puts American public transportation to shame.

I was surprised, but not yet worried when we got into the cab. The car looked like a portable disco. The dashboard was inlaid with neon. The radio was huge. The seats were covered in black and white faux fur. And the interior lights were black lights. I was hoping for a disco ball and maybe platform shoes…but no luck.

The driver did his best to match the flamboyant interior. At first glance, he didn’t look too much different than a regular cabbie, but his personality made up for his rather mediocre looks. At one point during the ride, he referred to himself as a goet namja, “flower man.” I’m not really sure what extra meanings that phrase may carry in Korean, but it somehow seemed to fit.

After demonstrating how loud his radio would go, the first question he asked when we pulled away from the curb was if we were drunk. We weren’t. I’m not much of a drinker, especially of Korean drinks. The beer here is okay, but the Korean drink of choice is soju. There’s a rumor among foreigners (that may well be true) that soju is made with formaldehyde. Truthfully, it is made of fermented sweet potatoes and/or rice and is kind of like vodka. It does have a very chemical taste, though, that betrays ingredients that will probably never be known.

We hadn’t had much soju, but I think our driver had. First, he made a point of showing us all the features of his car: the blinking lights (20 on the front grill, he said), the light-up hood ornament, and, get this, voice activation. He’d say something, and the car would honk. He’d say something else, and the car’s lights would come on. He’d say a third thing and the radio would crank up.

“Kit car,” he said. At first I thought he meant that the car was a kit, but later I realized he was referring to “Knight Rider.” Remember, the car was named “Kit.” Yeah, I don’t really remember either.

After showing us the features of his kit car, he was still doing his best to impress us. First he called his home office to talk to some woman about nothing. As he talked, he cupped imaginary breasts on his own chest. Somehow this was showing off. Then he got really crazy.

He said something I didn’t understand, but I knew had something to do with racing, then he cranked the engine. The speed limit on any Korean road is 100 kilometers an hour (about 60 miles per hour or so), and the road we were on was in the city, which probably meant the speed limit was closer to 50 kilometers per hour. The driver hit 100 km/h in no time, then jumped up to 120. I wouldn’t have been too worried except I was up front, and his seat belts were broken. I pushed my feet into the floor, grabbed the arm rest and hoped for the best. He was doing about 140 and weaving through traffic before he finally backed off.

By the time he was done with his joy ride, we were almost back at our apartments, so I talked him in from there. I breathed a sigh as he sped off.

I wonder how long it will be before the new guy hops in a cab again.