15 Feb

PDA

Who taught: Office

PDA (source: http://metropolitician.blogs.com/)

Back in Korea, my parents used to say to Jessy and me, “We have never seen a couple like you guys. You guys are so happy together and show love to each other well. It is great to see.” The reason why they said like that was because we did not hesitate to show our affection in front of them. We hugged and kissed a lot even when they were present. It sounds very normal in America, right? But, it is not in Korea. I am not sure how much things have been changed in Korea ever since we left but, when we were there, people did not like seeing other couples’ hugging and kissing in public places.

It was kind of socially and culturally prohibited. Sometimes, old people say some harsh words to young couple who are showing their affection in public places. For example, Jessy always wanted me to show my love in public places. Whenever we are in a subway train or a park, she was asking me to kiss her. Then, I was like, “Hey, this is not our home. Don’t you see other people here? We cannot kiss here.” Then, she became sullen till I really kissed her. To save her and me from that unhappy situation, I had to kiss her. So, I looked around and around and around to find a proper time, then, if no one was looking at us, I kissed her very quickly. Well, then, Jessy became happy again. As this happens again and again, Jessy asked me more. She wanted to me get bolder to kiss her even people were looking at us. I was so embarrassed to do it. So, what I said to her was, “OK, here is the deal. Since we know we are gonna move to America, I will kiss you in public places in America because people there would not care about it and all of them do kiss in public places, I think.” She accepted the deal.

So, when we got here, she wanted me to kiss her in Time Square of New York City. Well, I did it and Jessy was happy. Most of all, nobody cared as far as I remember.

A few days ago, there was an episode of Office TV show about this behavior. Do you know what American people call this kind of behavior? It is called, PDA. Let me guess! Now, you would be saying, “What? PDA? That is like a small mobile device, Personal Digital Assistant.” That is right. But, at the same time, PDA means “Public Displays of Affection.” Based on the episode I saw, it looks like American people do care about PDA and they are not really fine with seeing PDA. So, the question is how much is fine and how much is not fine? Maybe it was because PDA happened in the office? So, if it is in subway or park, it is fine? I need to know the answer because Jessy will ask me to kiss again in the central park of NYC. Somebody please tell me!!!