Pick Up Your Kid!!

Before coming to Korea I had neither the slightest inclination nor the tiniest bit of cause to ever even contemplate kicking the living shit out of a small child. But recently this urge, ne this craving to bludgeon both the child and the oblivious mother who thinks a packed subway staircase is the appropriate place for walking lessons has been difficult to suppress.

From the packed trains and platforms to the conveyor belts carrying frantically sprinting businessmen, every aspect of the Seoul Metro screams urgency. On any given morning the throngs of passengers pounding the marble floors and stairs as they transfer from one line to the next is a daunting spectacle. The trains regularly fill to bursting as literally millions of people make their way across the city. Yet all of this goes completely unnoticed by the average housewife. With only her Gucci handbag and small child in tow, this quintessential model of postmodern domesticism hunting for the perfect $2000 shower curtains remains bafflingly unaware of all this. I can no longer count the number of times I’ve watched in bewilderment as a mass of busy Koreans are forced to nervously wait behind a woman slowly and gently coaching her young child up or down a subway staircase.

Please, for everyone’s sake, pick up your kid!!!!