Going to Write this Down Before I Forget It

I sometimes take the train in Korea for trips on weekends, and one place that I sometimes stop is Daejon. When I stop there I almost always spend the time between trains at a small noodle restaurant which is on the platform. Quick meal of kind of thick noodles in hot soup with small bits of seaweed on top. Makes a good fast meal. Place is small. Not many can eat there at once, about six total I think and they have to sit on stools.


Anyway, I never had any problem there except on one visit. Here's the story. So one day while I was eating my noodles a family came in. Looked like a mom, a dad and two sons - younger one about four years old, other seven maybe, don't remember him well. They were well-dressed, respectable looking people. The boys and mom were sitting next to each other and very close to me. Not much space as I said. So the younger boy looks over at me and before long starts to say "Ungdungee ddoong-ddoong hay yo" (엉덩이  뚱뚱해요) which is literally "butt is fat" but meant "Her butt is fat." In Korean often the subject is dropped from a sentence as in Spanish. So the boy may have said that again once or twice and then switched to saying simply "fat" or "ddoong-ddoong hay yo." He must've liked the sound of that cos he kept saying it over and over and over! I don't know how many times he said it, I guess close to ten before I told him to stop by saying loudly "Ahn-day!" (안돼). He stopped then. I know how kids sometimes like to repeat words over and over. I can remember doing that when I was a kid. Different words though.


Kids do things like this. I understand that. The interesting part is this - the kid's respectable-looking parents never said or did a thing during or after. In fact this is what I remember: a bit after the kid became quiet the mother looked over in my direction and nodded in a friendly way. There was nothing in her expression to indicate that she had seen or heard anything. Then the father came over to the family carrying a tray with their food. He was facing away from me. Then I heard him say to the boys to say "hello" or "how are you." He was speaking to them in Korean. May have said to them that I was an English teacher or a foreigner. I don't remember. Point is he didn't say anything about what the boy did. However when I consider that he was only facing away from me, it makes me think that perhaps he was a little ashamed. Still neither he nor his wife scolded or said anything to the boy or said sorry to me. I repeat it was a tiny place. I know the mom heard it and pretty sure the dad did too.


Would this happen in America? It could, however we would say that parents who allow their kids to do something like that are not good parents. I'm not saying these parents are not, but I still have trouble understanding their lack of response. You can see a lot of cultural differences in the way people from different countries raise their kids.