What the bow can do for you

They say you don't need to speak Korean to live comfortably in South Korea . . . and I'd say that's true. I'm comfortable, if ignorantly so. While exploring the area around KBS today I experienced a series of incidents which probably wouldn't have even been incidents if I spoke Korean. Nonetheless, I have mastered a handy trick for navigating through predicaments. . . not just a traditional bow, but some kind of ingenious combination of bow and a helpless/stupid/endearing flash of blue eyes.

The key: although you're lowering your head (duh, you're bowing), you NEVER lose eye contact. This is no joke, but empirical evidence achieved after the analysis of multiple uncomfortable situations. I tried the simple bow the first few times and it never "took care of" the situation. It always resulted in even more, usually louder, Korean bouncing off my ignorant self. After incorporating the consistent eye contact (and all-important "I'm a stupid American" expression), I found most incidents ceased to be, well, incidents.