Jan 26, 2021
Welcome to The Blossoms
Why I moved to Korea for two years and waited to write about it
In the spring of 2017, I found myself at a crossroads. I had just gained admission to the graduate program of my dreams at one of the nation’s most renowned art schools. I lived in a dream state for a few weeks until my financial aid information arrived in the mail and brought me back down to earth again. The amount I received in scholarship money was sizable, but compared to the cost of two years’ tuition, the loans I would have to take out were gargantuan.
Too large to justify an MFA. Especially with what little money I had to my name, living paycheck to paycheck working at a grocery store while my partner, Allan, put in hours at a teriyaki restaurant in town.
I was crushed. I didn’t want to keep living the way we were. I was restless. I wanted something new. I wanted to throw myself outside my comfort zone and see how I grew. I was twenty-two years old and craving that “life experience” everyone always talks about.
So I hatched a new plan: moving to Korea to teach English.
All my life I’d wanted to travel outside of North America, but never had the funds or opportunity to. Moving to Korea seemed like the perfect exciting substitute for continuing my studies while also quenching my thirst for travel. Either way, I’d be moving to a new city larger than any I’d lived in before and be challenged in ways I couldn’t predict. I would grow no matter which path I took, but one led to saving up a fair amount of money and the other led to crippling student debt.
I chose to be an expat. And so I was for two years, living in the bustling, rapidly changing city of Busan from early 2018 to late February 2020.
It’s been nearly a year since I’ve been back stateside, and I finally feel I have enough distance between now and then to write about my life in Korea. I wanted to put some space between myself and my expat experiences to gain some perspective on them.
That’s what I hope to accomplish here in The Blossoms — stories from my life abroad that are neither too honeyed nor soured with the moment’s feelings, but viewed through the fuzzy lens of memory.
Cherry blossom season is a national ordeal in Korea. Parks are swarmed with citizens and tourists alike taking pictures of cherry blossoms, in front of cherry blossoms, their children in front of cherry blossoms, their dogs in front of cherry blossoms, and so on. Yet, the trees only bloom for two weeks.
For a brief time, we all exist under a pink canopy. And then, before we know it, the canopy disappears and we tread on blush— every sidewalk and gutter feathered in petals.
One day it rains. Not like it does during summer typhoons, the wind all but blowing raindrops back at the sky, but enough to wash away every last vestige of cherry blossom season. Unlike snowmelt, the petals don’t leave behind any proof that they were ever there — no mud, no muck, no flood or high water. Their absence is stark.
At first, it seems silly to make such a big deal out of an event like the cherry blossoms. It happens every year for such a short time and the crowds can put you off. But it’s the magic of their sudden appearance and disappearance without a trace that leaves you wondering if you ever really saw them at all. Each year you find yourself wanting to go back to see them again and take more pictures not to prove to anyone else that they exist, but to yourself.
These stories of mine are cherry blossoms. They are the two years of my life where everything was thrillingly abnormal, then the petals fell, the rosiness was underfoot, and then suddenly those years were gone and I was left reeling.
Now is the time in-between cherry blossom seasons — the time for looking back and remembering the charm and the chaos, the good and the bad. The time for reminiscing and measuring growth.
I hope these stories nudge you to reflect on periods of growth in your own life. Welcome to The Blossoms.
