When Joel and I first went to a department store here, it felt like going home. The shiny surfaces and high ceilings felt so familiar, and surrounded by Estee Lauder and Clinique displays and blond models in ads, we had to remind ourselves where we were. I’d never been so happy to stand in a cosmetics department; it was a little shot of the West–a relief from the live eels in the street market, a respite between difficult food orders.
Shopping calmed me then, before I knew what it entailed. Now, I rarely visit what the cabbies call “Departuh”–the Lotte and the Hyundai towers, set opposite each other on the big street downtown. They still remind me of the West, but only for the first 30 seconds; after that, it’s all over–it’s clear I’m in Korea. This is because what I’d assumed was just a temporary newcomer greeting is actually a way of life here: WAY too much “service” from the store clerks.
They mean to be nice. They think they’re helping. You approach a rack, and within seconds, there’s a smiling lady by your side. She watches, she glows, she offers to find your “sizey.” If you dare pick something off the rack, it’s as if you’ve committed. She’s offering to wrap it up–what? Don’t you like it? I can only guess that Koreans must be incredibly decisive people.
I know you’d think I just need to say those magic words: “Just looking,” right? Yeah. No. Look around, and you’ll notice that every single shopper has a special friend attending them. They don’t leave. They linger. They literally follow your every move, inching as you inch, smoothing items you muss, suggesting their own ideas if you take too long.
To make it worse, each line of clothing in a store is managed by different attendants, so you can’t take something with you from one aisle to the next while you “think about it,” pointing to your head and wondering what they think you mean, just desperate for some breathing space so you don’t actually buy something with lacy frills that will make Joel say you look like a “cutie putie.”
No, you must buy it here. Don’t you want it? What? But you said it was pretty!
Oh, the defeat in their eyes when you leave it behind. You’d never believe they’re all salaried, but actually NONE of them work on commission; they just want to do a good job. They want to show you good service.
I’ve developed a technique for avoiding good service at my favorite store, New Core Outlet, where all the departments are so crammed together that a new lovely woman calls out “Annyong Haseo” at every six-step interval. That place is set up in a ring, roughly the size of the women’s department at the Lodi Target. I’ve noticed that if I walk quietly and look preoccupied, I can sometimes manage a full minute of looking at something before another dear lady descends on me. So I do this, circling the store, retracing my steps again and again, sneaking peeks at the merchandise over and over until their “Annyong Haseo”s have an undertone of curious irritation. Then I leave, empty-handed. I didn’t say it was a good system.
Our washer shreds everything we buy, anyway, so it’s probably a good thing that my only real clothing purchases here have been a “California Dreaming” t-shirt and a pair of capri pants with extraneous buckles. Oh, and a pair of $60 New Balance running shorts that I bought for seven bucks IN FRONT of the New Core Outlet, at a booth manned by a sullen-looking man who wasn’t into providing good service in the rain. I hunted through the pile until I found my trophy, silently grateful for his bad mood. Ah, the relief of inattentive service: Now that felt like being home again!
–HEATHER
