Rainy Day in Asia

When it rains, the street vendors, who sell everything from fruit and fish to toothbrushes and slippers, open up these giant rainbow umbrellas that remind me of summer at the beach in North Carolina. They sit beneath them, amidst their wares, chatting with their neighboring vendors, as the deluge pours down. I pass them on my way to and from work. The rainy day commute can be quite dangerous at times! Being a good head-and-a-half taller than the majority of the Koreans I meet, it seems my eyes are directly aligned with the pointed edges of their umbrellas, which fill the streets in a colorful pedestrian rainbow. I have suffered, on one such occasion, a tiny slice on my cheek, just below my eye, from the clawing edge of a pink-and-white Hello Kitty rainshield. And as umbrellas have a way of obscuring vision, both of the carrier and the raincoat-wearing individual, my walk to work involves more than the usual share of bumping and jostling, I have to duck and dodge as well!