How Dare You Question My Hunger!

At no time in Canada have I ever been questioned about food I was purchasing or ordering. Yet it happens with shocking regularity in Korea.

What do I mean? Well, sometimes when I go to a restaurant, coffee shop, or some other distributor of consumables, I get hit with a barrage of questions about my order. Are you sure? Isn't that too much? Are you really going to eat all that? Really!??

With questions like that you'd think I was ordering a metric ton of food. But I'm simply ordering from the menu. I ordered one kimbab roll and a dumpling, and the owner asks me if I think that's too much. When I say no, he comments that I must be very hungry. Another time I ordered two -GASP!- sandwiches from a toast shop and the woman asks me if I was sure I wanted two. I said yes and she warns me that I will be very full. Even after I ate them she suggested that next time I order less.

I mean, honestly, you'd think I'd walked in there and rattled off some unthinkable order:

"Hey there, how ya doin'. Give me forty-two bagels, fifty-eight coffees, all your ice cream, a crate of eggs, a hundred and twenty chicken salads. Hey Ernie! Go get the truck! Where was I ... uh ... can I buy those entire cakes, or do you only sell pieces? Cool. Give me nine cakes. What? Oh, I don't know, mix 'em up and surprise me. Let's see ... thirty liters of chocolate milk, a bucket of ham, and all the sandwiches you can possible make with the ingredients you have at this moment."

But no, I order two sandwiches made with regular slices of bread and the woman practically calls an ambulance. I really can't figure out the reasoning behind this behavior. The strangest part is that it is the person selling me the food that is telling me not to buy so much. Seems counter productive for a business.

"Are you sure you want all that?"

"Hmmm, actually I'm not sure. I think I'll go home instead. Farewell!"

I thought at first it had something to do with me being a foreigner, but then I saw other Koreans being bothered the same way. I saw a guy come into a pizza place and it turned into a interrogation. So you want a pizza? Are there more people coming to join you? No? And you want to eat it here? A whole pizza? By yourself? Really!??

Just give him a pizza!! What the hell is this? If you own a pizza shop, you want people to buy pizza! Why should you give two shits about who will eat it and how? Hungry people are your friend. Hungry people order food. A lot of food. More food than they need, and that's money in your pocket.

You know that look on someones face when they realize they have far more food than they can eat? Koreans must hate that look.