Korea vs High School: Socializing

I like to think that I'm a nice person, a relatively happy person, and an approachable person. In the past couple days, though, I'm starting to believe that maybe this "bubbliness" is too much for some people. That, or people are just downright RUDE. Not just any "people" but other foreigners here in Korea.

The reason I bring this up is because, yea, in the past couple days I've noticed some pretttttyyyyy rude foreigners. Example numero uno: I was walking home from the grocery store on Sunday... I was walking on the sidewalk (totally normal) and saw this foreign chick walking towards me. We were the only ones on the sidewalk and so, naturally, I smiled as in saying "hello" without actually speaking. Girl did not EVEN respond. She just kept walking! What?! I saw her later in our apartment/villa complex and I wasn't going to say anything that time, but she said "hi" so I responded, albeit begrudgingly because she ignored me earlier on in the day.

Example numero dos: on Monday evening, as the three of us were walking home from work, we saw a foreign guy walking towards us. It was daylight and it was a small street, so I said "hello!" nice and loud and clear-like as he was walking past us. This guy did NOTHING. Absolutely nothing! He just kept walking. I watched him pass and he didn't even BLINK, guys. RUDE!

I've heard a couple stories from people who have been here for longer than a year and they have said that when they first got here, everyone was super friendly and wanted to get to know everyone, but now foreigners try their hardest to straight up ignore other foreigners that they do not know. This reminds me of high school where you had your own little click and did not want to talk to anyone else. Kind of like the group of friends you already have is good enough and taking on anymore friends might be bad or something. There could be a bunch of different groups crowding the hallway that would never interact with a different clique. The only time people from different cliques crossed paths were if they happened to be in the same after school club or sport, but even there, they would try to stick with just their friends.

That's sort of how it is here. Like I said, I think I'm an approachable, nice person, so I'm guessing it's just other foreigners don't want anymore friends or they just refuse to socialize with people who are not in their group of friends. So rude.

Here's a picture to brighten the mood:

David and Kevin of Elephant class being elephants!

Oh, and here's another:

'Baller' and 'holler' on a spelling test. :)