I'd only been in Korea for a couple of weeks. We had just moved into our apartment. Joe was at work. All of the windows were open and I was hot and sticky; it was August and I didn't want to turn on the air conditioning unit, because I didn't know yet that it's actually pretty cheap to run.
So I was just sitting there, probably on my computer, I don't even remember, when I heard a Korean voice coming over a loudspeaker outside. I panicked a little bit, even though it didn't really sound like an angry voice, and hopped up to look out the window. It was one of these guys.
(The blue truck, not the man on the roof.) This truck is a Bongo. They're the pickup trucks over here. You don't usually see American-made trucks, and when you do, they're driven by Americans.
Anyway, the Bongo was yelling in Korean. I think it was a recording. In the bed of the Bongo were fruits and vegetables for sale. It was like an ice cream truck except with watermelons and red peppers instead of ice cream.
I was pretty happy, because the loud Korean voice was just selling stuff and not trying to incite a riot against Americans or warning of an impending attack by North Korea. There's another Bongo that drives around talking loudly, and that one sells fish. You can hear them from blocks away. They usually come around once a day, and sometimes twice, in the morning and in the afternoon.
Then, we started seeing/hearing a different kind of driving-around-yelling truck. These seemed to be campaign trucks. Makes sense 'cause their presidential election is next month. These trucks have the usual loud Korean voice, but they also have music, and sometimes they also have guys riding on them, standing at a podium in the back of the truck under an awning, waving. See if you recognize the music being played by this one.
Yep, the Korean election truck is playing the Pirates of the Caribbean theme song.
Isn't that amazing?
And a little confusing?
No comments:
Post a Comment