huh?

The doorbell rang this morning. Liam and I were eating ice cream after a trip to the playground. Matthew & Rowan were taking a nap in the bedroom, so I answered the door.

It was a strange man. The first thing he said was, "아기?" and then in English, "baby?" He was kind of looking past me at Liam, but I couldn't figure out what he wanted. The next thing he asked was, "American?" I answered, "Yes." He then switched to Korean, which I didn't understand and told him as much in Korean.

Usually, unexpected visitors either (a) have the wrong apartment, in which case they quickly apologize and leave, (b) are building maintenance workers there to check the gas line or spray, in which case they show me their clipboard and equipment, etc., or (c) want to convert me to their religion, including the teenage Mormon "elders" (one Korean, one American) who were very shocked to see a white woman answer the door. This guy didn't fit into any of those categories. I couldn't understand what he wanted at all.

"What do you want?" I asked in English. See what a witty conversationalist I am? The whole time he was just kind of smiling weirdly. "I don't know what you want, so I'm just going to shut the door," I said. He was already starting to walk away as I did so.

I realize that living here has made me paranoid, but if I had to hazard a guess, I would say he came by just to get a look at the foreign kid. I'll probably never know, though, which is one of the things about living here that is so frustrating.