It was sorta like Lana Turner getting discovered at a drug store soda fountain at Hollywood and Vine.  Except I was having a brew at Goldfish in Itaewon as I am wont to do when killing time.  As mentioned before, this is a “open air” bar that is ideal for people watching.  I hadn’t considered that some of the lookees might be looking back.

Anyway, my solitude was interrupted when a 30ish Korean woman came in off the street and politely inquired in near perfect English if she might bother me with a question.  Well, I was fully expecting that she was going to do the “do you know Jesus” thing, but being nice to a fault I responded “sure”.  She thanked me and said she would only take a minute of my time.  I nodded and then she layed it on me–would you like to appear in a commercial?

I was momentarily taken aback because it seemed out of the blue.  But my instinctive reaction was to say no, and so I told her “no”.  She asked me to reconsider and said the photo shoot would only take one day.  I again responded “no thank you, just not interested”.  She thanked me again for my time and left.

Hmmm.  I don’t know why I said no without really thinking about it.  But upon reflection, I knew it was the right call.  There was no mention of money, but I’m doing all right in that regard anyway.  I guess I just didn’t see why they would want a fat old white guy in their commercial unless it was for the purpose of mocking me.  After all, I’ve not seen many waeguks portrayed favorably in Korean media.  And it likely would have been in violation of my visa status as well.

So, opportunity knocked and I said get the hell outta here.

More or less.