《首爾母親》: Seoul Mom(英文原本)
Seoul Mom
There is a woman who has always loved me as if I were a son of her own. Mutually, I also see her as a mother to me. She was born and raised in Seoul, Korea. Even though we are not related by blood, I call her “Seoul Mom.” She has guided me like an angel throughout my lonely life in Hawaii.
I attended university in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the beautiful island of Hawaii. While my friends in Hong Kong envied me and considered me the luckiest person ever, I did not know how to tell them the loneliness I had actually endured. Compared with the academic contents of my major, I had learned more about loneliness in my first year at college. When I first entered school, I met some students from Japan. We attended school activities and visited supermarkets together often. However, I realized that we were merely people who spent time together frequently. Our friendship was not increased much. They always spoke Japanese to each other. Though studying in America, they did not find it comfortable to talk to me in English. Our conversations were shallow so as our friendship only remained in the surface level. They were polite and decent people, but there was a large gap between us that I could never cross. Those were the only friends I had as a new freshman but I could not fit in. I felt sad.
I told Seoul Mom about my situation and how empty I felt. She sent me back a selfie with her cute 4-year-old son. Looking at her son in the picture, I smiled. How great it is to have a loving family? I envied her. People tend to take their families for granted because family members have always been beside them. Loneliness reminds people of their families, the people they forgot or cared less for when they were having fun outside.
On Sunday, I attended a church sacrament meeting, in which I hoped to find peace for my empty soul. As a result, I found more rejection. During the first meeting, in front of me sat two rows of Korean students. I tried to be nice and polite to them, but they did not enjoy interacting with foreigners. They played and laughed together like a family but did not include any non-Korean. I learned how to respect them. When I saw empty seats near some Korean students, I chose to find another seat because I knew they were waiting for other Koreans to sit beside them. The best thing I could do for them was to stay out of their way as a non-Korean.Sitting in the last row alone, seeing how the rest of the ward mingle happily. My heart ached and was overcome with loneliness.
People who have grown up at the church may not understand why investigators or less-active members stop going to church, but I know one of the reasons - loneliness. When one sits alone in a place and does not feel included, he would feel awkward and want to leave. In normal cases, young people who grew up at church have always been treated as a part of the ward family, how would they understand what it feels like to be left out? But I do. Loneliness is such a powerful tool that Satan uses to turn people away from God. That day, even I, a believer studying in the church’s university, felt not willing to stay in a church meeting for the first time in my life. I sent Seoul Mom a message.
“Eom-ma,” I called her “mom” in Korean, and typed, “There are so many Koreans in my ward but they don’t like hanging out with foreigners.”
“It’s normal. Koreans like to stick together with Koreans,” Seoul Mom explained as a native Korean. “While they care much about their own people, they can completely ignore outsiders.”
I continued, “In the morning, they go to church together. At night, they eat together and they live closely together in the dormitory. They have such a sweet family while I sat alone and watched all these things happened in front of me.”
“Don’t think like that!” She replied, “As a Korean, I hate always being forced to do things together. Trust me, it’s not enjoyable at all.”
I thought Seoul Mom said that simply because she did not understand how I felt at that moment. She grew up in Seoul, attended university in Seoul, and she still had her family with her in Seoul then, especially her two sons who were so cute that everyone would want to hold them. How could she possibly understand the loneliness I was enduring? But as I thought in that way, she sent me a message.
“Believe that you deserve better, and always remember there are others who love you,” she typed.
I smiled. It was the strangest conversation ever. I typed in Korean and told her how lonely I felt as a non-Korean living with Koreans, and she told me how she sometimes disliked Koreans too even she is a Korean.
I knew there was a talent night held by the Japanese club. No one invited me to go but I still went. I sat next to the Japanese students with whom I often spent time at the beginning of the semester. It was an exciting gathering for Japanese students. Some went up to the stage to sing. They sang songs that contained their childhood memories, which all Japanese students could relate to. Some told jokes and presented comedian plays, which only Japanese people could understand. They laugh together joyfully as a family. What happened to me? I sat beside them, but as an outsider who did not understand a word. I questioned myself why I would even choose to go to that party in the first place. Once again overcome with loneliness, I left the room silently and went to practice the piano, and I told Seoul Mom everything.
I forgot a Korean word. I asked, “‘Dol-a-ga’ means to return?”
“Ne.” Seoul Mom replied “Yes” in Korean.
“‘Then ‘Dol-a-ga-neun-gos’ means a place to return to?” I asked.
“Ne.” She answered.
“I don’t have a place to return to. No one wants to include me in their groups,” I typed with loneliness.
“It’s okay,” she replied, “Life itself is lonely.”
I asked, “The place where the one who thinks about you is at, is the place where you can always return to. Is that correct?”
“Ne,” she agreed.
I asked, “To you, that place is Seoul?”
“Seoul of course,” she replied.
She continued, “I'm here. You can come.”
People need a place or a group of people that they can always return to, especially those who are living abroad alone. To Chinese immigrants in the U.S., that place could be Chinatown. To some religious people, it might be their church. However, I, a lonely young man living in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, did not know where I could return to. I was desperately searching for that one place.
Having realized that I wasn’t needed in any group, I felt pathetic whenever I tried hard to fit into a group but failed. Therefore, I quit trying. I decided for myself to stay away from people. I went to school, worked, and then locked myself in a piano practice room for a few hours everyday. And I had kept that routine for half a year. One night, as I was walking home at 1 am after practicing the piano for three hours, I could not feel lonely anymore. I only felt pain. I was completely empty and had no idea what I was doing with my life. I sent Seoul Mom a message.
“Mom, I can’t hold on,” I typed.
Just a few seconds after I sent the message, I saw a gray text “seen” under my message. She was online like she had always been every time I murmured to her at midnight. Time difference made her the best listener to me because my sorrowful midnight in Hawaii was always her relaxing afternoon in Seoul.
Seoul Mom replied, “Being with children is lonely too.”
I was shocked. While I had always envied her for having a happy life with her sons in the fascinating city of Seoul, she suddenly told me she was actually lonely too. That was something I had never expected before.
“Why?” I asked.
“I only have One-way communication with kids...”
She told me she devoted all of her time to taking care of her sons everyday but she could not have normal mutual conversations with them because they were not adults. That night, I only listen to Seoul Mom. It turned out she understood loneliness just as much as I did.I came to realize how selfish I had become because of loneliness. Since I had lived in Hawaii, due to loneliness, I only complained to Seoul Mom every night so that she would comfort me. Seoul Mom is like an angel to me but she is actually a human. Just like others, she also had sorrows and struggles but I had not considered about that. Loneliness made me focus only on how miserable I was. I had become such an inconsiderate person.
Summer came, I finished my first year at college. Finally, I flew to Seoul. Seoul Mom drove 60 miles from where she lived to Incheon International Airport just to pick me up. I found her car and got in quickly.
“An-nyeong-ha-se-yo,” that kind woman with white skin and a pair of typical Korean round glasses greeted me in Korean, looked at me with a sincere smile, and asked, “Slept well on the plane?”
It was such an unreal scene to me. No words could describe how much I had missed her. Looking at the signs on the road, the words on them were not “Honolulu” or “Pearl Harbor,” but “Seoul” and “Incheon.” And the person who had comforted me through texts every night was sitting right next to me. I turned my head around and saw her two adorable sons sitting at the backseat. I did not grow up in Korea. In fact, I did not even speak Korean well. But was I home? Had I returned to the place where the one who thought of me was at? Yes, I had.
I asked, “Are these all real?”
She asked with a smile, “It still feels like a dream?”
It was 10 pm when we got back to Seoul. We parked the car in front of a bakery. She bought me dinner. I did not know what to say. I was lonely and left out. But was there someone else who loved me? Yes, there was. The next morning, Seoul Mom got up early to cook for her children. She fed them and then drove them to school. At lunchtime, she fed her second son to eat. After school, she drove her children back home. Like Seoul Mom had told me before, she could never chat with her children. To her first son, she only said things such as “Be quiet,” “Sit down,” “Stop,” and “Come back” because he was naughty. Her second son did not talk at all. I saw what one-way communication was like, and she had been doing that everyday.
Living with Seoul Mom helped me realize how lonely she had been. In Hawaii, I could isolate myself and I did not need to think about anything, but Seoul Mom had to take care of her sons no matter how lonely she felt and yet, she had the energy to listen to my complaints and comfort me. Loneliness had once been my biggest nightmare. It tortured me, changed my view of the world, and made me do terrible things that I had never imagined I would do, such as isolating myself and not trusting people. I had experienced for myself how powerful loneliness is, so I wondered why Seoul Mom was so strong and how she managed to endure all those things.
I found the answer in that afternoon when Seoul Mom and I were having delicious Korean fried chicken, her second son suddenly came to us. Seoul Mom asked him what happened and whether he wanted to have some chicken, he did not say a word as usual. He did not like talking.
But Seoul Mom held him in her arms and said, “Sa-lang-hae.”
Those who enjoy Korean dramas may know that means “I love you.” I thought that uncommunicative son would just keep his mouth closed as he had always been quiet. I thought it would be just another one-way conversation that Seoul Mom had already been used to.
But he suddenly opened his mouth, looked at Seoul Mom, and mumbled back, “Sa-lang-hae.”