This post at Cathartidae comes at the right time for me. The entire post is here "Negativity."

"I’m an old-timer here in Korea and I’ve learned that a healthy amount of insouciance while navigating the mean streets of Seoul works wonders in keeping the stress level down. People will bump into you, people will spit, people will stop and talk in the most inconvenient places; what can you do? You can let it tear you up until you are a card-carrying member of the Dave’s ESL Cafe I Hate Korea club, or you can learn to let all the hassles of the day just slide right by you so you can arrive home with a smile on your face.

I just want to holler at these people to get some perspective. In the grand sceme of things, the problems foreigners face in Korea are pretty trivial."

As someone who has had more than a reasonable number of Sidewalk Rage incidents, I really need to lighten up. If you don't believe it, a year ago, I was walking hurriedly along a crowded sidewalk in Kangnam and came upon six people shoulder to shoulder walking slowly down the sidewalk. I went left and they drifted left; I went right and they drifted right; I went left and they drifted left, so I angrily darted around to the right, and, in a move that I couldn't do on purpose if I tried, my left leg came in contact with a concrete block in the middle of the sidewalk (intended to keep cars off the sidewalk) just as my left foot was planted firmly; my right leg pushed off to quickly get around them, and, in the blink of an eye, I was flat on my face on the sidewalk with blood pouring from a 1cm gash on my eyebrow.

In general, I'm not really in a hurry to get to places, and I'm really a slow stroller. I don't know why I get so upset. It really isn't good for me. The people who upset me with their blocking and bumping have no idea what has happened. It doesn't bother them. They don't get to work upset at what happened (since they don't think that anything happened). After being here for years, I have to accept that I will never understand how someone can "look" at me and step in my way and stop to light a cigarette - how someone can be standing in a doorway and see me approaching and not move. I have asked Koreans about what seems to me to be a lack of awareness, and they never know what the hell I'm talking about. This is the reality of Korea. I have often thought that I need to become like water (as I learned in many years of martial arts) and just flow around them. It has helped recently that I have often asked myself how the Dalai Lama would react. I have great respect for him, and I can't imagine him getting upset.