From Seoul to You

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I moved to Seoul to start a new life. I just didn’t realize how quickly that life would fall apart.

Three weeks after I arrived in Korea, I was sitting alone in a bar in Haebangchon. It was a Tuesday night, and at that particular moment, the bar seemed like the best refuge available to me.

I was sipping a drink that was far too sweet and waiting for it to get late enough that I could call my mom in California and ask if it would be possible to use her credit card to book a ticket home.

That’s right.

I was seriously considering pulling an infamous move called the Midnight Run.

I’d seen TikToks about people who came to Korea to work, absolutely hated it, and absconded in the middle of the night. I never thought I could ever find myself in the same position.

And yet, here I was.

Mentally preparing my pitch to my mom.

I would beg if I had to.

At this point, I wasn’t above it.

I took another sip of my drink and winced—not just at the alcohol, but at the embarrassment of what this move to Korea was turning out to be.

What would people say when I showed up back in Irvine less than a month after I had so confidently proclaimed that I was moving to Korea permanently?

Could I ever live that down?

Twenty-three days.

It had only taken twenty-three days for Korea to break me.

Twenty-three days of going from the most elated I had ever been to the most miserable I could remember being.

And I had begged for all of it.

I had planned for this.

I had done the research.

I had even paid for a one-on-one consultation about what I should be prepared for in Korea. I had taught myself how to read and write Hangul and had just reached a five-hundred-day streak on Duolingo.

And yet, none of that could have prepared me for reality.

When my director told me he would meet me at my apartment instead of picking me up from the airport, I should have known what I was in for.

I was brand new to Korea, and while I knew I could take a bus or the subway into Seoul from Incheon International Airport, I ended up taking a taxi instead.

A taxi that charged me 200,000 won.

At the time, it seemed worth it to acquiesce to the rather insistent middle-aged Korean man smiling at me and speaking in his best English, assuring me that he could take me directly where I needed to go.

I had two fifty-pound suitcases, a carry-on, and a backpack.

His offer sure beat trying to figure out how to drag all of that onto a subway car by myself.

The second red flag came when the taxi driver turned onto a dark, narrow street and stopped in front of a red-brick building with cars parked underneath it and a pile of what appeared to be trash and recyclables near the front door.

My director wasn’t there yet, but at least the taxi driver helped me take my luggage out of the car.

So I waited.

Alone.

In the dark.

I startled every time a delivery scooter zoomed past.

Just when I was about to turn on my data and accept the roaming charges so I could search for—and call—my director, a man turned the corner and hurried toward me.

“Violet? I am Director Lee.”

“Oh! Hello, Director Lee! I was just about to call you!”

Director Lee immediately busied himself punching the door code into the keypad.

When the sliding glass door opened, he grabbed one of my suitcases and directed me to follow him.

The building didn’t have an elevator, and my place was on the third floor.

However, that wasn’t what concerned me as I climbed the granite steps.

It was the smell.

A musty smell permeated the air, leaving the back of my throat itchy and uncomfortable.

I would later learn that it was the smell of black mold growing behind the wallpaper.

And it was everywhere in my apartment.

To be honest, I didn’t even know that the proper term for my new home wasn’t really apartment, but a one-room.

The bedroom, living room, and kitchen were all one space, while the bathroom was the only separate room.

And it was a wet room.

That meant the entire bathroom was essentially the shower.

What confused me even more was that my washing machine was also in there, along with a drying rack because dryers weren’t common in this type of home.

It wasn’t terrible for someone like me, living alone.

And I was determined to use my decorating skills to turn it into my refuge, regardless of its size or condition.

Director Lee gave me a quick rundown of the functions in my new one-room.

He showed me how the heater worked and told me that I should leave it on low during the winter months to keep the pipes from freezing.

He showed me where I could plug in my air conditioner—or, as he called it, my aircon—when the weather got warmer.

He helped me sign into the Wi-Fi, reminding me that the school paid for it but that the fee would automatically come out of my paycheck.

He showed me how to use the shower and reminded me to twist the knob that redirected the water from the showerhead back to the sink faucet.

He even showed me how to open and close my windows, which worked very differently from the ones I had at home.

Once Director Lee left, I looked around my place and felt a small thrill of excitement.

I did it.

I left home.

I traveled across the world.

I made a dream I’d had since I was a teenager come true.

So how had I ended up sitting in a bar on a Tuesday night, wishing I’d never come here in the first place?

I took another gloomy sip of my drink.

I was quickly burning through the cash I had saved before coming to Korea.

I wouldn’t get paid until the month after I started working, so I knew I needed to arrive with enough money to survive until then.

Unfortunately, that money didn’t last as long as I’d expected.

Not after buying an immense amount of cleaning supplies, moisture absorbers, a dehumidifier, and enough reed diffusers to make a candle store jealous.

The convenience store across the street from my building had become one of my regular stops.

I’d stood in front of shelves filled with cleaning products I couldn’t read, choosing bottles based almost entirely on which ones looked the most powerful.

I bought whatever I thought might help.

The mold didn’t care.

It helped with the smell.

But not the side effects.

My money also didn’t last once I got tonsillitis and had to be put on an IV drip at the hospital.

Between using my loud teacher voice, the mold, and the terrible air quality that often settled over Seoul during the winter, my poor tonsils didn’t stand a chance.

I’d been taking antibiotics and drinking copious amounts of hot tea during my first two weeks just to get through the day.

Pair being sick with staying out late every night after work—trying to wear myself out in cafés, convenience stores, and malls just to avoid breathing the wretched air in my living space—and I was reaching the end of my tether.

But maybe I could have handled all of that if my job hadn’t been so stressful too.

I knew teaching and working with children in general would be difficult.

I thought I had prepared myself well enough.

I’d volunteered at my church back home, teaching lessons to children.

I’d volunteered at an elementary school and a child development center.

Surely that would give me some understanding of what I was getting myself into.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Kindergarten in Korea was NOT comparable to anything I had experienced before.

“Violet Teacher! Why is your belly so big?”

“Violet Teacher! Your head is so small, but your body is SO big.”

“Violet Teacher! Baby?”

My students were technically four years old and had apparently never interacted with a plus-size woman in their lives.

I knew I might experience some discomfort living in a country where being in a larger body was less common than where I grew up.

But nothing could have prepared me for the attention.

The children’s questions, I could shrug off.

I’d explain that people came in all sorts of shapes and sizes where I was from.

But what was I supposed to say to my grown co-teacher, Subin Teacher, when she suggested an internal medicine clinic nearby that could “help” me with their special weight-loss tea?

Or to the grandmothers at the park, who would fuss over me with concern about my size?

I could accept most of it as not coming from a malicious place.

But I had never paid that much attention to the size of my body before.

I knew I was big.

So were plenty of people back home.

I’d been on a “weight-loss journey” since I was twelve, but by then I felt fairly neutral about my body.

I knew I was fat.

I tried to eat mindfully.

I tried to stay active.

And honestly, I had more pressing things to worry about than a number on a scale.

I think Subin Teacher took my polite, “Thanks for letting me know,” about the clinic as a green light to begin micromanaging me at work.

There was only one other non-Korean teacher at the school, but he’d already been there for three years.

He was standoffish, but not unpleasant.

He just didn’t seem interested in becoming better acquainted.

That left me alone with Subin Teacher’s consistent stream of criticisms.

I spoke too quickly for the students to understand me.

I needed to control the classroom better.

I had to follow the schedule exactly.

I shouldn’t speak any Korean to the children whatsoever.

I needed to show the students exactly how to wash their hands every time they came out of the bathroom.

And I needed to be more fun.

Even during the week I had to wear a mask to school because I was so sick with tonsillitis.

Nothing I did ever seemed good enough for Subin Teacher.

Eventually, I started waking up every weekday morning with a knot in my chest.

I wondered vaguely what she might say tomorrow when I came in tired from yet another late night spent anywhere but inside my moldy one-room.

She’d probably point out my dark circles and tell me I should wear makeup to school.

Again.

Sighing in frustration, I downed the last of my drink.

Time to call my mom and face the music.

“That bad, huh?”

The bartender had come back around.

Haebangchon—or HBC, as most of the foreigners I knew called it—was a special neighborhood for a lot of non-Korean residents, and it wasn’t unusual for business owners there to speak English.

“Yeah. I’m not sure if I’m going to stay much longer,” I replied, still bracing myself for the phone call I knew I needed to make.

“First time in Korea?”

The voice came from a few seats away.

I turned toward the man who had asked.

He looked around my age.

Maybe slightly older.

He was dressed like he’d come straight from work: a white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, dark trousers, and a tie hanging loosely around his neck.

“Is it that obvious?” I countered.

How had he guessed that so easily?

Did I stick out like a sore thumb even here?

“I think it was when you asked where the hongjangsil was instead of the hwajangsil*,” he said playfully.

His lips curled into a smile.

Behind heavy black frames, his expression was unmistakably teasing.

I felt my ears get hot.

I’d practiced saying “Where is the bathroom?” in Korean over and over again.

I couldn’t believe I’d messed it up so badly.

I couldn’t even bear to look at the bartender, who had kindly ignored my mistake earlier and simply showed me where the bathroom was.

Which, in this particular bar, was outside and behind the building.

“Yeah, I guess that would be a dead giveaway,” I muttered, grabbing my coat.

The embarrassment suddenly made my moldy one-room seem appealing.

At least no one there could witness me fumbling through Korean.

“Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean it in a bad way,” the man said. “I thought it was cute.”

That only made my ears burn more.

“Ah. Okay. Well, I should probably go home now.”

“Let me buy you a drink first to say sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. You tried, and that counts.”

I stared at him.

“Not to be rude, but are you from somewhere else? Your accent is nearly identical to mine. Are you from California too?”

He laughed.

“No, no. I am one hundred percent Korean. I learned English here in Seoul.”

“Your teacher must have been really good,” I said, biting my lip nervously. “I don’t think my students are learning nearly that well from me.”

“Oh, are you a teacher?” He gestured toward the chair beside him. “Come sit down.”

What could it hurt? I thought.

He seemed pleasant enough.

“Okay.”

This mystery man asked what I wanted to drink.

I told him anything that was NOT sweet this time would be great.

“To answer your question, yes, I teach kindergarten,” I said after taking my first sip of a drink that was significantly better than the one I’d had earlier.

Free always tastes best.

“Oh, little kids are so cute and adorable. They must be lovely.”

“THEY are fine,” I said. “It’s the management that’s killing me.”

That opened the floodgates.

I told him everything.

I told him about the students’ questions.

The black mold.

Subin Teacher.

The fact that I had told my school about the mold and they’d told me to just “air it out more.”

Subin suggesting I go to the fat clinic.

The way the mold smelled.

How I was slowly running out of money trying to make my apartment livable.

The old ladies at the park who fussed over my body.

How hard it was to make friends when I was one of only two foreign teachers at the school.

Oh, and did I mention THE MOLD?

During that largely one-sided conversation, I learned that his name was Minjae.

He was twenty-five and worked for a company near Jongno Station.

He had just finished a fourteen-hour shift but had come out because he simply didn’t want to call it a day when so much of it had already been consumed by work.

He was also, he informed me after I’d prattled on for fifteen minutes straight, a great listener.

I was just happy that someone was listening to me.

Really listening.

Showing empathy for my situation.

For the first time in three weeks, I didn’t feel like I had to defend myself.

I took another sip of my drink and sighed.

“It’s getting late. I should go home.”

Minjae checked his watch.

“No way. It’s still so early! It’s only ten. Do you like to sing?”

“Sing? I sing at church. Do you want to go to a karaoke bar or something? Do they have those here?”

I was already running through a list of excuses to avoid publicly embarrassing myself.

“Have you been to a noraebang? A karaoke room?”

“I think I’ve heard of them before, but I haven’t been. Is it expensive? I don’t think I can—”

“Ayyy, I’m oppa, okay? Big brother. I will pay for it. Don’t worry. It will be good for your stress!”

Minjae’s expression radiated so much excitement that I couldn’t help but laugh.

I glanced toward the bartender.

His expression was completely neutral.

Maybe that was a good sign.

Maybe this was normal.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”

Completely unaware that I was sealing my fate.

That this Haebangchon Hail Mary—this night that kept me from going home—would be what started me down a path that would change me forever.

I couldn’t have known then that the man sitting a few seats away from me at a bar on a Tuesday night would soon become one of the most important people in the world to me.

I couldn’t have known that one day, I would fervently wish I had never met him.

I couldn’t have known it then, but that Midnight Run would have been the smartest thing I could have done.

And I botched it.

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*Hwajangsil (화장실) — Bathroom or restroom. Literally, the word historically refers to a place for applying makeup (hwajang means “makeup” or “cosmetics”), though today 화장실 is the standard Korean word for a bathroom or restroom.