The Bicycle Thief

As we have mentioned before here, Korean garbage disposal consists of just putting bags or just plain piles of garbage on the sidewalk. There are designated places for it but there is little to no use for trash barrels. It's not uncommon to see things on the sidewalk that you yourself may want to keep. There are tables, chairs, shelfs, lamps. Really, all manner of things. So you can imagine my delight when I left our building for work the other day and saw a nice looking bike in the garbage. 

I still have no clue what "garbage day" is but the garbage was pretty high. There was also an old mattress, an old lamp/night stand, and this bike leaning against the mattress. I have a bike here but, frankly, it is sort of a piece of crap. Naturally, I was delighted with my luck to find this awesome bike in the trash. It seemed a little too good to be true. I looked up and down the street and around the corner and there was no one around. So I began to examine the bike. The bike seemed to be in good shape. It was rather old but definitely better than what I have now. It had a lot of character and could already imagine myself cruising through Mokpo on it. 

I inspected the tires, brakes, and frame. Everything seemed to be in good working order. At this point, I am very reluctant to do anything with this bike. Someone may have just left it there, although I don't know just leaves their bike in the garbage. There was even a key that would lock the back brakes and that was unlocked with key in place. It struck me that the owner would have locked this had they wanted to keep the bike. I thought of leaving it until after work to see if it was still there but knew that if I did that someone else would take it. There are is an army of people in the city that scavenge the garbage for anything recyclable or useful. 

I decided to give the bike a whirl. I figured if anything was wrong with it it must be the gears. They must jam or something. So I took the bike and gave it one pedal down the sideway to see what would happen. As I took off an older man appeared out of nowhere and came sprinting after me. I slowed to a stop, having moved maybe 10 feet, and the man began to grab me and hit me and yell quite loudly. I almost fell off the bike in surprise and bewilderment as to me situation. 

I immediately forgot any and all Korean that I know and just started yelling, "No, No!" back to him so he would stop hitting me. I finally remembered how to say, "no" and "sorry" and began to say them as much as I could. He hit me one more time for good measure and began to lecture/yell at me. I explained I don't speak Korean and he then continued to lecture me in Korean. I felt bad that he thought I was stealing his bike so I just let him yell at me hoping it would make him feel like he got some justice. I eventually think he understood that I thought the bike was trash due to the bike being in the trash. He kept asking me something I couldn't understand and I just apologized one last time and went on my way to work. 

PS - If you have never seen the movie The Bicycle Thief you should probably go do that right now.