i was doing one of my "orbits" of the ward earlier while my friend grace was visiting. there are plenty of other patients trundling their ivs of varying complexity around the halls at almost any time of the day or night. we all walk around like somnabulent ghosts of diverse mood and genre.
because, currently, i cannot walk and talk at the same time – to walk i need a hand to steer the iv stand, while to talk i need a hand to put pressure on my tracheal hole, and my sum total of working hands is less than two – we just keep a pensive silence as i trundle purposively.
"there. you did it again," she laughed.
i stopped, carefully parking the iv stand close to a corridor wall. i picked up my folded sheet of clean gauze, and pressed it at the base of my neck. briefly clearing my throat first, i finally managed a weak, "did what?"
"i see you're giving the white man's nod to ajeossi now." she seemed surprised.
there are some terms in that statement that require explanation to anyone not inhabiting the narrow english-speaking expat community of south korea.
"the white man's nod" is the subtle acknowledgement, short of actual greeting, that seems to arise between the confreres of any visible minority in any place, so it doesnt belong exclusively to white men – the naming of the term is more the exception that proves the rule. any non-asian who has spent time in korea knows – when youre walking down the street and pass another non-asian, you almost always share a little nod or duck of the head, as if to say "oh, there goes another foreigner like me. here we are, foreigners in korea."
the other term here is ajeossi [아저씨] which just means an older korean male of indeterminate social status.
both these terms being known to me, i quickly grasped what grace was talking about. "i suppose." i said without hesitation, "its not really a white mans nod as a cancer patients nod."
and its true – our pajamas and our iv stands a-trundling, we are highly visible and almost a majority. i think the nod has always been more about a sort of solidarity in shared difference as opposed to any kind of greeting at all: "oh, there goes another cancer patient. here we are, cancer patients in the halls."
graces insight is to point out the sociological identity of two seemingly unrelated situations.