Ajima is Korean for 'crazy'

An agjima is a older Korean woman. It was one of the first words I learned here. And they are an enigma. I will be honest, I have always been 'drawn' to older women... But ajimas are crazy! And even though this is a male-dominated country, women run the show.
Ajimas have mastered the "Korean squat." They can squat on the sidewalk for days selling their home-grown vegetables. It is a physical feat that defies nature. Ajimas are so weird. They have an unspoken, unexplainable power about them. They can pretty much do anything they want.
For example, there was this ajima that beat up a younger Korean girl on the subway for not offering her seat.
Today I went to the Seoul zoo and while I was waiting for my friends I was watching a group of ajimas talking on the grass. Then one of them stands up and pulls her pants down to show something to her fellow ajimas. So in the middle of busy, weekend-crowd zoo this old lady is showing her friends (and everyone else) her old-lady underroos.
Another thing I have surprisingly gotten used to are the ajimas who clean the public bathrooms. Unlike the States where janitors close the bathroom to clean them, ajimas literally clean around you while you are using the bathroom. The first time this happened to me I was completely embarrassed. I was urinating at the urinal and this ajima passes from my left, picks up some trash and scrubs the urinal to my right.
However, the most awkward bathroom/ajima experience was at work. The cleaning ladies at work used to ride in the same death-trap we rode into work on so they would try to talk with me and randomly touched my face... So I felt we had a 'relationship.' They would talk to me and I would just smile like a retard watching brownies bake. But one day at work I was peeing and the cleaning lady comes in. When she sees somebody is in there she actually turns to leave but then pauses and watches me pee for a couple of seconds. I am standing there just smiling and she is looking at me, curiously processing my white wiener. I felt so weird. It was obviously what she was doing but what could I do but just finish?
Ajimas can also be ruthless. I have had ajimas almost push me down because I am moving too slow or standing in an area they want to stand in or just want to mark their territory, making sure even the foreigners know of their dominance in this society.

But ajimas are also the cutest things in the world. I get a thrill out of seeing them dressed in the cute, shinny, colorful Sunday clothes. Or their over-sized polarized, prescription-grade visors that cover their entire face and neck. They can also, carry an infant, sell peanuts, direct traffic and change a taxi's oil all at the same time.

I was told a joke by one of my Korean friends. Here it is:

"There are two types of ajimas.
-Tough ajimas and even tougher ajimas."

Jp