Instagram as a visual diary
Seoul, South Korea: Buddha’s Birthday lanterns. Love it or hate it, call it photography or not, there’s something romantic about Instagram. Captured spur of the moment with a smartphone, these digitally-enhanced, square-formatted images are both visually appealing and a great tool for documentation. For about a year, I’ve been uploading photos on Instagram, and in some...
Riding the white horse: On being foreign in South Korea
KEVIN, my Korean co-teacher, had an idea for our open class. “Let’s make a motivational video,” he suggested. “I’ll ask, ‘Would you like some more?’ you’ll say, ‘Yes, please,’ and after we repeat this a couple times, you’ll stuff your shirt with balloons. When you stand up to clear your tray, you’ll look really fat!” “Really,...
Dear Dahae,
A few weeks ago, I was catching up with a friend who I’d met while studying abroad in 2009 at the Korea National University of Arts. As we were eating slices of Turkish pizza, I casually mentioned my former roommate Dahae. Much to my surprise, my friend suddenly responded, “Oh, she died.” I held my...
From city to country
I climbed onto the Seoul-bound bus in Inje. The only seat remaining was next to a pimply teenage boy leaning his head against the window. He avoided my gaze, reluctantly removing his backpack from the seat and placing it on the floor beneath his feet. It was summer. My friends and I had gone rafting...
An ode to my old neighborhood in northeast Seoul
“Dolgoji station,” I tell him. “Dolgoji?” “Yes, Dol-go-ji,” I repeat, enunciating each syllable. We stop hiking and he stares at me in utter confusion. “Sorry, I don’t know where that is.” This is the response I receive from nine out of ten Koreans when I tell them where I live. Or rather, where I lived....
Goodbye Seokgwan Elementary School
Goodbye Seokgwan Elementary School. Goodbye bringing toilet paper to work. Goodbye Cool Messenger. Goodbye empty office. Goodbye squat toilets. Goodbye deskwarming. Goodbye four-story building. Goodbye barren playground. Goodbye English textbooks filled with mistakes. Goodbye Nami. Goodbye Jinho. Goodbye low-budget English videos. Goodbye students who refuse to use punctuation. Goodbye Hello Kitty pencil cases....
My ever-growing attraction to Asian men, and how the US prevented it from happening earlier
How can you NOT find these washboard abs irresistible? “Sarah you’re definitely going to have a Korean boyfriend when you move to Seoul,” my Korea-American friend would tease me back in 2009, as I was preparing for my semester abroad. “No way,” I would respond, laughing. “I’m not attracted to Asian guys.” How wrong was...
A broken air conditioner and an ajumma in charge
My middle-aged, ajumma Korean landlord has more energy than the girls who promote sales at beauty shops in Myeongdong, bouncing up and down in knee socks and repeatedly shouting the same phrase into a microphone for hours on end. She is never in my building, so she comes to my school once every three months...
Anish Kapoor at the Leeum Samsung
Prior to last weekend, I didn’t know much about Anish Kapoor, an Indian artist residing in England, but after hearing many positive reviews, I visited the Leeum/Samsung Museum of Art to see his solo exhibition. I’ve been anxious to return to this particular museum ever since I viewed Do Ho Suh’s impressive solo, “Home Within...
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