I stared at my bowl of soup.

The floating fish head stared back.

As I locked eyes with the fishy compatriot that was supposed to be my dinner, the only thought in my head was:

How did I get here?

The short answer is that I was patronizing a restaurant in South Korea, and had no knowledge of the Korean language to give me a clue of what I was in for. So, when the waitress came by to take my order, I blindly pointed to some long option halfway down the menu.

The fish head bobbed.

I had barely touched my food by the time she had returned to my table to check up on me.

Not wanting to appear rude or look like a picky foreigner, I gave her a feeble “thumbs-up” sign. She wasn’t fooled, though—I’m not that good of an actor. She looked down at my untouched fish and then back at me. I watched as she began to mime the use of chopsticks, waving her hand back and forth in some bizarre stabbing motion that I could only assume was some advanced eating technique that I wasn’t yet ready for.

I only realized after I’d left (and long after she had given up and walked off) that she was trying to show me the proper way to eat my entrée. In retrospect, I can almost hear her thoughts in that moment:

“Pick the fish apart and eat it with the soup, you fool!”

Who Needs Language?

This was one of many such experiences I had while traveling in South Korea. My brother (whom I was visiting for the week) taught English to middle-school students in a small province near the port city of Busan. While he was a pro at teaching foreigners the ins and outs of spelling and grammar, he hadn’t been there long enough to give me more than a cursory lesson in Korean.

Sure, he knew enough to communicate with the locals—but he worked during the day, leaving me free to roam the city with a vocabulary that was limited to “kamsahamnida” (thank you very much) and “jwesonghamnida” (I’m sorry). Surely these were enough to get by, right?

As it turns out, they actually were.

I walked into an ice cream parlor. The girl working behind the counter mumbled something at me.

“Thank you very much,” I replied. She stared at me.

I pointed towards a strange green ice cream that appeared to be mint, and tried to indicate that I was willing to trade my money for it. She said another incomprehensible phrase. Clearly, she was giving me more credit than I deserved and was assuming I knew conversational Korean.

“Thank you very much,” I said again.

She laughed at me, and gave me a scoop of the green ice cream that I had been stupidly pointing at.

I felt like an idiot foreigner as I walked out of the establishment. But you know what? I had achieved my goal of getting ice cream and I didn’t need more than a couple irrelevant Korean words to do it.

(As an aside, the ice cream I chose was wasabi-flavored. That’s why she was laughing.)

Unspoken Interaction

It’s interesting to think about how much we can communicate to each other without the use of our words. We use our body language, we make signs with our hands, and can even make universal grunting noises to get our message across. With how complicated and diverse the different languages on this planet can be, it’s easy to forget that in many cases, they’re not necessary at all.

No, I’m not arguing that language is completely unnecessary. If I had needed to do anything more complicated than order soup or get directions while I was overseas, I would have been in trouble. But even when we share a language with those around us, we rely on non-verbal cues to do the lion’s share of our communication. A glance to the side, wringing hands, and a furrowed brow can all be as expressive as the spoken word.

I shared no language with my Korean waitress, yet she did her best to explain the right way to eat my fish-head soup. (With mixed results, and with the mistaken mindset that not knowing how to eat it was my only hang-up.)

I didn’t know the words for “ice-cream,” “please,” or “I don’t like spicy food,” yet through context and caveman-like hand signals I was able to fulfill my ice cream needs.

The spoken language is an incredible tool we use to communicate with each other, but my time spent in a culture that neither knew nor cared about my language made one thing clear: when it comes to interaction, words are a luxury, not a necessity.

Unless, of course, you’re allergic to fish heads in your soup. In which case I would advise you to avoid my mistake and simply point to the food at the table next to yours.

I’ll have what they’re having.

Greg Hill is a web content writer from the Midwest with a penchant for self-actualization and racquetball.