On my second weekend back from South Africa, I went to visit Helyn, who was leaving South Korea for good. She wanted to eat a traditional Korean meal, the same we'd had when we first arrived in the country. We went to the grand Lotte Department Store, which has an inhouse food court, and ordered bibimbap, a rice dish with vegetables and spicy paste. In the time that we sat down to eat and halfway through the meal, I reached for my handbag to get my cellular device. My handbag was no longer hanging on the back of my chair.
At first, I just laughed at Helyn and said, "Okay okay, where is it?" She hadn't a clue what I was talking about. My handbag was gone. And it had everything in it; my bank cards, foreigner ID card (without it, you can do nothing in this country), cellphone, camera, perfume and a substantial amount of money. I actually felt my heart fall to the floor. One just does not expect these things to happen here.
We were the only foreigners in the whole food court. I found the first restaurant worker I could and, while weeping, tried to explain my predicament in broken Korean. She eventually called security but by that time, whoever had taken my bag, was long gone. Sadly, the security personnel were not much help; there was no CCTV in the eating area and it is incredibly difficult when you cannot properly communicate.
Fortunately, there was one young lady who could speak a little English. She took 2 hours to cancel my bank accounts after me phoning every human being in Helyn's phonebook to obtain details of account numbers, my ID number and bank phone numbers. All the while, I wept. Helyn didn't know what to do but she remained so calm throughout, which was a great help. And it was her second-last day in Korea. I felt so bad for her.
But it all changed when the police arrived at the shopping mall. It became a rather comical situation and Helyn and I cheered up considerably. First, the police wanted to see where the incident had taken place. Thus, the four security personnel, two policemen, Helyn and I traipsed back to the food court, where I demonstrated what had happened with wild gestures. One of the policeman then asked me, "Did you see anything suspicious?" I said that both Helyn and I had noticed a strange-looking man lingering around but had thought nothing of it. " What did this man look like?" he said. "Um, he was Korean, he had short, black hair. He was an average height and was wearing a dark suit with a black coat." Oh, like every other man in Korea? Yes, basically.
Following this ridiculous discussion, we were whisked away to a police car. Now the day was getting very exciting as we drove on the pavements of the train station to get back onto the main road. I phoned my co-teacher, who was no more helpful than he usually was, and cried again. What seemed like an insurmoutable task lay before me; replacing bank cards, ID card and my cellphone would be a mammoth task with no help from him and not being able to express what I needed. But the policemen were very nice and kept asking questions all the 45 minute drive to the police station. And they even put on the siren for a few seconds.
We walked into a relatively empty station. In five minutes, it was full of officers, having a look at the foreign girls. I had to write my version of events on a piece of paper. I'm still not sure if the information has been entered into the system. But apparently, Korea doesn't do case numbers. I have no proof of reporting the crime or that anything was done about it (not that there was much they could do).
Our day improved substantially, however, when we found an almost full bottle of Imperial 12-year-old whisky on the table in front of us. Another man was reporting the theft of his expensive watch. He'd obviously come straight from the party though, as he was wild-eyed, smartly dressed and smelt of smoke. We asked him why he had a bottle of whisky at the police station. He couldn't answer us but offered us the bottle of whisky as a gift (a plea for forgiveness on behalf of the man who had stolen my bag). Obviously, we declined but the friendly policeman insisted we take it as it is rude to turn down the offer of a gift.
We returned to Gyeongsan with a picture of me and the policemen, a huge bottle of whisky and one handbag less. But make no mistake, we had a stiff drink on the return to Helyn's flat and a good laugh at the events of a very interesting, if horrendous, day in Korea. Not many people can say they have driven in a Korean police car, sirens blazing.
