Okay, okay.

Since I arrived here a little more than a week ago, I've found people to be phenomenally helpful and patient. Those who speak English have helped me navigate through a fairly daunting language barrier, and those who don't have found ways to help me communicate regardless (I dropped some stuff off at the dry cleaner the other day, and there was more gesturing, shouting and pointing than at your average Samuels Family Seder--zing!). The one frustrating thing is people are very hesitant to say no or to indicate that they don't understand. They want to be helpful, so they say "okay, okay" even when it's not. On Sunday morning I wanted to go to the gym, but some of the entrances to the building it's in (a skyscraper across the street) were closed. I tried to ask the security guard if the club was open, but he just kept saying "okay, okay." "It's closed?" "Okay, okay." "So it's open [making open-arms gesture--he probably was praying that I didn't want to embrace him]?" "Okay, okay?" It continued like this for about five minutes before I left, nary a weight lifted or meter run. And who's on first?

This is, of course, entirely my fault. The guy was trying to be helpful, and I'm sure if he understood what I said he would have answered me. If I could even learn a sentence of Korean--or for that matter, have remembered to bring a Korean-English dictionary--I could have found out the answer to my question. It is, after all, his country. But I'm going to hear "okay, okay" differently when I get back to the states.