My life in Korea got off to a rough start.
Six days after settling into suburban Seoul to teach English, I arrived at my apartment to find my key didn’t work. Strange, I thought. The key had worked that morning when I left.
I walked to the school and found all my belongings in garbage bags. The owner informed me that he didn’t have a job for me after all and then loaded my stuff into the school van. He was passing me along to a friend on the other side of Seoul who needed a teacher. Without much agency, I fell in line.
The new apartment was nestled at the end of a rundown alley. It was small, musty, and filled with sterile fluorescent light. The new town was on the very outskirts of an expanding metropolis, the last stop on the newest subway line. To fill the time, I signed up for taekwondo in the evenings. I was the only adult in a dojo full of small children, some of whom I taught during the day. It was like that episode of Seinfeld where Kramer takes karate. I Skyped home often from dark and smoky PC bangs (internet cafés) to connect to the people who knew me.
I was lonelier than I had ever been. Then I met the Kims.
They asked me to teach their daughter English
They owned the restaurant at the end of my alley. It was called The Pig House and served exactly what you’d expect from a restaurant with that name. Winding aluminum ducts snaked down like tentacles to the grills at each table.
One day, a woman approached me. It was a friend of theirs who spoke English who said the Kims asked if I would tutor their daughter, Eujin, who was six. I agreed. I gave Eujin lessons on the heated floor of a small room in the back of the restaurant, often while her dad, Byungdong, watched Korean soap operas beside us.
Soon, I was having dinner there most nights after taekwondo. Eujin’s mom, Myungjoo, bought an English phrase book that she used as a tool in our nightly conversations. Once, frustrated with each other and eager to practice English, I witnessed an argument using the book. Myungjoo searched for the right insult.
“Talking to you is like talking to a brick wall,” she over-enunciated.
Byungdong grabbed the book, flipping pages for the proper retort. A full minute passed.
“You don’t know what you are talking about,” he clapped back, his face contorting as it always would when he tried to pronounce English words.
They were what I needed
Our relationship deepened. They took me to noraebangs (karaoke rooms) with their extended family. I spent Chuseok, Korean Thanksgiving, with them. On weekends, sometimes we would pile into Byungdong’s taxi and go hiking in places I never would have found. Other times I took them into Seoul to explore the neighborhoods I was discovering because they rarely went into the city.
I realized throughout all of this my loneliness was melting away. But it was more than that. As an only child of a divorced family, spending time with the Kims was like therapy I never knew I needed.
I left Korea after seven months but never lost contact with the Kims. Today, Eujin is 24, the age I was when we met. I have kids of my own who are roughly the ages she and her brother Woonghee were back then. Eujin’s English is great, and we Skype regularly. She sends my kids Christmas gifts. I give her interview advice. We talk about the Squid Game and share recipes.
The Kims want to come to the US, and we’ve told them they will always have a place to stay. After all, that’s what family’s for.
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