MOST FOREIGNERS WILL AGREE that Korea's women are her finest product.

Korean women are beautiful, fearless, and intensely loyal; without them it's doubtful if Korea would have made it through the twentieth century. But forget that docile, subservient stuff; it's pure facade. Anyone who has been in Korea for a week will know the busy ajumŏni type pushing her way shamelessly to the head of the queue in the bank, the post office, the railway station or any government office. She is a figure of fun to Koreans and foreigners alike, but make no mistake, she can be very exasperating.

GOING TO THE BANK

Gugin Way, a longtime resident, had business in the local branch of his bank. He set out with his usual sense of anticipation, armed with bankbooks, tojangs (seals), plastic cards, three photographs, passport, birth certificate, residence permit, driver's licence, medical insurance, anything he thought might be useful. Experience had taught him it pays to be prepared. As usual, the inside of the bank was like Seoul Station at Ch’usŏk, lines at the money machines, lines at the counters, every seat full.

Some foreigners get impatient in these circumstances. Not goodly Gugin Way. He just took his place in the queue. Over the years he had cultivated a rare transcendence in the face of what he called the bureaucratic wait. It did not bother him at all, that is, until that archetypal character, the busy ajumŏni, arrived on the scene. She touched a nerve that quickly moved him from relaxed waiting mode to steeled for battle mode, not for battlebattle, with angry words, raised voices and so on, but for what he liked to call fun-battle, the kind of sortie that put the other customers giggling and sent him home with a chuckle.