Can we smoke in here?

We were sitting on the subway when an older Korean gentleman sat down next to us, sandwiching my friend between him and myself. He stared for a minute, leaning over her, as if amazed to see me, as if I was some mythical animal he was sure didn’t exist.

“I’m a bloody unicorn,” I thought bitterly as I stared back, making it clear I knew what he was doing. He finally spoke.

“Russian?” he said, tentatively, hopefully. “Russia?” he said again, a little more forcefully, still leaning over and gazing at my blonde hair, eyes flicking down occasionally to my cleavage.

“No!” I said, angrily. I got out my teacher voice. “Anniyo!” I said again, then turned away from him. He backtracked a little, though the sad cow look did not leave his face. “Where are you from?” he asked.

I refused to answer, but my friend, after looking at me quizzically, turned to him and gamely started to chat to him in her new Korean. She was stumbling through, giggling, and he was responding but still staring at me. I elbowed her a few times, hissed her name, but she didn’t understand why I was being so rude to this man and continued to talk to him.

Finally, the subway stopped and I pulled her to her feet. “Let’s go,” I said, shooting a dirty look at the man, who continued to gaze sloppily at me. “Hurry.” As we waited for the doors to open, I stared right back at the man, eyebrows raised. The challenge didn’t work: he thought I was gazing into his eyes, and continued to stare.

The doors opened and I pushed through before they’d opened all the way, tripping as I did so. “Fuckl!” I swore loudly, frustrated.

“What the hell?” she asked. “What’s wrong? Why were you so rude to him?”

“..Seriously?” I said.

“He just wanted to know where you were from….”

I looked at her unbelievingly, realizing nobody had told her and she thought I’d been unspeakably, unnecessarily rude.

“Sweetie,” I said. “In Korea, ‘Russian’ means ‘prostitute’. He was openly asking me if I was a whore. He wanted to know if I was open for business.”

Her jaw dropped. “Oh shit,” she said.

“Goddamn,” I said, looking around. “This is the wrong fucking stop.”