Question

Our last class of the day is from 9:20pm-10:05pm. We teach the middle school students aged 14 and 15. One of my students has recently been to Vancouver with her parents, and even had some Canadian money to show me - loonie, toonie, and a 5 dollar bill, which is more than what we brought with us to show Koreans.

She had a question for me. As she tried to ask it, she realized I wasn't understanding the full meaning of her English. She, very excitedly, explained it to her peers in Korean - and most of them were quite bewildered and wanted to know the answer.

Her question was (when I finally figured out her English) : "Teacher! Teacher! When i was in Canada, I saw something very strange. When cars approached an intersection and there were no stop lights - the cars stopped. Why did they do this?! Why would they stop when there's no lights?!"

...this should give you some insight into Korean drivers...

We have never seen a stop sign in Korea. Only traffic lights. And they are not as abundant as one might hope. There is an invention in Korea that is used all the time. The horn. When a car is reaching, or in, an uncontrolled intersection, they just honk - and keep going. So when 4 cars approach at the same time, they all honk, and strategically move around each other. We have never witnessed a traffic accident yet. Traffic moves along quite surprisingly smoothly here!