Not so stranger danger

This little one was quite the delight today after church. It seems that in Korea it is the adults that tend to be more wary of foreigners than the children are. Children here are just themselves. They do stare and point and are just so very curious about all things. When you say "Ani" which is hi or anything like that, often their eyes will widen and they freeze in their tracks or they run back to mom or dad.
Not so with this little one. There were three of us today waiting for the subway and she would run over to us and just look up and stare. She'd wave as we waved and then run back to mom for a minute. After a moment of eye contact with the parents we knew it would be okay to say hi.
Once she plucked up the courage again she came over and waved and as she was returning to the safety of mom and dad she looked over her shoulder and said "hel-lo". So she is learning English.....
Once on the subway she was the delight of our short tour. She would still come over and stare and mom and dad encouraged her to come over to us. The older Koreans on the bus were at first unsure of our intentions but then they all were enjoying the scene that was unfolding. Finally she came up to Kim and patted her leg a couple of times. I think just to see if we were real. That's when we taught her how to high five to the chuckles of the entire subway car. She playfully bounded back to mom and dad apparently satisfied with her adventure with foreigners.
See Korea, we aren't all bad. . . take a chance and look at us through childlike wonder. We just want to belong too.