[MORNING CALM TALES] Random acts of kindness in Korea

There I was, my second week in Korea, sailing right along. My conversation classes at the language institute were going well. The split shift — 10 a.m. to noon and 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. — wasn’t nearly as brutal as I’d been warned. I’d even picked up enough Korean to get by day to day and had learned, through a bit of trial and error, that those bottles I thought were milk actually contained makgeolli, a traditional fermented Korean rice wine. As I said — it was smooth sailing. Until one fateful morning at Sincheon Station, now Jamsilsaenae Station on Seoul Metro Line 2. In 1990, subway stations in Seoul operated with a system that felt both mechanical and reassuringly straightforward. The turnstiles consisted of an electronic ticket reader mounted on the right side and a set of waist-high steel bars that revolved when unlocked. Subway tickets were made of thin yellow cardboard, about the size of a stick of chewing gum — just a little shorter and flimsier. You’d insert the ticket into a narrow slot on the right side of the turnstile, and with a mechanical clunk, the bars woul

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