Almost Arrest in South Korea
So, let me start with some backstory. There was a restaurant by my house in Korea like a three minute walk that served the Pork Bone Hangover Soup and you know that was one of my go tos. I was going there probably every single week to the point where they knew my order. Shit was cool.
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After a while there was another spike in Covid cases so I decided to start getting my food to go. The first two or three times it was good. No issues. The time after that I get home and my food is cool. So the next time I go I was very clear. I wrote in Google Translate, "Can you make sure my food is hot because I don't have a microwave and I can't heat it up when I get home." Cause who is going to turn on the stove when you just got takeout? The fuck. Not me. I wrote it in the Google Translate and they're like, "Okay, cool." No issues.
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I do this maybe one or two more times. Everything is cool. The third time I go in and they're like, "Oh, no. We can't heat it up." The fuck? So, we have a little spat. I'm going back and forth like, "You've heated my food up multiple times." Cook my shit up, Quay. What are you doing?
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So, I kid you not this goes on for about twenty minutes and then they cook it. I don't know what the whole scene was... If they were practicing for a play. Maybe it was supposed to be theatrics? I don't know.
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The next time I go they're like, "Oh, no. We're ready for this little girl this time." I go and I'm like, "Can I have my soup and can you make sure it's hot?" They're like, "No, we can't cook it. It's against store policy." At a restaurant? It's against store policy to cook the food. Come on now. It's against policy to give people hot food? Make it make sense.
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So, once again I don't have anything else to do. It's my last week in Korea and all my shit is already packed up. I'm just trying to figure out the problem here. Other people are trying to help me and they're just like, "No. No. No, we can't serve her."
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One thing about me is I don't argue. I don't yell. I don't raise my voice. I don't give anybody that energy because nobody, to me, is worth it. Sorry, not sorry. So, they're continuing to holler and try to go off on me in Korean. I'm just like, "Can I have my soup, please? I have my card to pay."
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Again, forty five minutes go by and the next thing you know they're yelling across the store, "Police! Police! Call Police!" The biggest thing that got me was when did you learn English? I've been coming here for months and every time I come in you act like you don't know a single word. Now all of a sudden you know the word for police just to threaten me? You couldn't learn hello? You couldn't learn welcome? Learning police, call police was high on your list of things to learn though, right? That's the first thing you wanted to learn. Bet.
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At the end of the day, I'm not done. I know I'm a foreigner. I know I'm black. I know I don't look like anything they'd probably ever seen before. The second they call the police I'm going to jail. No matter where I am, I'm the threat. This skin? Dangerous. My hair and background? Violent. So, at that point it just wasn't even worth it anymore.
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They tried to lock the kid up. They tried to get me. They tried to put me behind Korean bars.
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