When I was ten years old, my older sister and I moved to my clan village without my parents after my grandfather’s passing. At that time in Korea, it was customary for the oldest son to live with his parents. My father was a banker, which necessitated that he move with some frequency as he was promoted to higher positions in different cities. He could not leave his job, so to save face, he sent his two oldest daughters (my brother was in Seoul attending high school) to live with his newly-widowed mother.
In my clan village, I had a teacher who introduced me to a writing teacher. This writing teacher excused me from doing homework and instead had me write five stories a day. He critiqued those stories every day after school. After nine months of his coaching, I was sent to a province-wide writing competition for elementary students. I won the competition and made my whole school proud. I decided to be a writer then and even studied Journalism at Ewha Womans University. But, as every good story goes, life got in the way of my writing.
How I Became Interested in Writing
