Es muss sein
Yi Yu-t’ae, Hwaun, 1944, ink and color on paper, 212 x 153 cm. Courtesy of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea.
September 2018. I moved back to New York City, New York from Busan, South Korea, where I lived from June 2018 to August 2018. I learned a lot about myself and about Korea, mostly that there was no future for me there. I could not assimilate with the culture. I was not a real Korean. I was a naive, young twenty-three-year-old with an adopted Korean mother and an Irish Australian father. I wanted to fit in so bad. I realized how American I was. To this day, NYC is where I feel most at home with who I am.
I romanticized Korea. The resiliency. The technology. The food. The Han.
For most of college, the only movies that would make me cry were Korean. The first time I watched Train To Busan, I fought my tears off with every subsequent sacrifice throughout the movie. In the end, when it is just the mother and the main character’s daughter walking in the tunnel, and the daughter sings, through her own tears, "다시 만날 때까지" (until we meet again), tears were streaming down my face. Outside of the IFC Center in the West Village, I squeaked to my friend, "What did you think?"
"It was kinda cheesy,” she said.
I held myself mostly together on the 1 train back to Columbia's campus, where I cried for over an hour on the ledge of the steps by myself. 
Theatrical release poster
I took Korean Politics, multiple Korean Language classes, East Asian Cinema, Korean Buddhism, and Major Texts: East Asia. For the first time in my life, I was proud to be Korean. I was proud to be a Korean man. In high school, classmates would say to me, "You're my favorite asian." But I never thought being asian was good. Asian men were weak and nerdy: pathetic. In college, though, I saw Asian men, on campus and around NYC, who were strong, intelligent, sexy, and desirable. I had Korean international and American friends who I deeply admired, who inspired me to be a better version of myself.
I had overcorrected. Korea was not perfect. I saw how grocery store employees were treated. Human worth was not inherent. Instead, it was derived by your place in a rigidly defined hierarchy. Gender, pedigree, heritage, and appearance defined you. I learned quickly I had no place there. I could not envision raising a family south of the 38th parallel. I could not see a path to personal success, either.
I was also extremely lonely. I lost a lot of weight. I would meditate every morning for 30 minutes and eat 콩국수 for lunch. After work, I would put a cup of rice into my rice cooker and go for a run for as long and as hard as I could endure. Then I would walk home and eat rice mixed with egg, spam, 깻잎 장아찌, kimchi, soy sauce, and sesame oil. Sometimes, I would start crying while running.
Still, that wasn't the saddest point in my life. I would have persisted through the loneliness if there was a tenable vision before me, but the combination of all factors meant that I left my job three months into my year-long contract.
I moved back to NYC without a plan. It seemed like the best place for me to get a job and fortunately I had multiple generous friends who let me crash at their places for a month or so at a time. I mentioned this in ‘Nothing is Worth Craving,’ but I felt like such a failure coming back from Korea. My girlfriend's parents were right all along. Moving to Korea to be a teacher was not the right decision.
I put all of my energy into the job search. I had some savings but I knew I couldn't stay with my friends forever and I felt like a burden immediately. I begged God for help. While this was going on, I felt an overwhelming pressure to be more successful, not just for my girlfriend's parents but also for my girlfriend too. She had a finance internship as a rising junior and I couldn’t believe how much she made in three months. I didn't feel secure in the relationship and I stopped putting in any effort. I honestly don't remember exactly how we broke up. I only had the single goal of getting a job.
January 2019. I have been working at a job that I started last November for a few months. It is a business development role. I cold call lawyers offering my company’s services, which is deploying our own lawyers on a project by project basis. It's not my dream job but I'm making some money now. More than at the Hagwon, atleast. I reach out to my ex-girlfriend and ask if she wants to grab a coffee. To catch up, for closure.
We met at the Pret A Manger on 116th Street and Broadway. I remember it was at the end of the day on a Friday, probably around 6 PM. I have a Trader Joe's disposable brown bag that's full of tupperware that I used at my office for meal prep. We were sitting face to face for the first time in months at a coffee shop but we didn’t get coffee. I don't remember getting anything, actually. The proximity, the conversation, was too much for me. My hardened exterior melted away and I felt myself starting to get emotional, "Can we walk to Riverside?"
"Sure."
At the park, we exchanged casual conversation. What we have been up to. My new job. Class. Old memories flooded uncontrollably into my mind, and I can no longer hide my emotions. At first a soft patter of rain becomes worthy of New York's sturdiest umbrella. My ex looks at me flabbergasted.
"I..." I said, struggling to control myself. "I never cried before. I never cried over the breakup."
She gave me grace and understanding. "I cried so much," she said, smiling and proceeding to give me a hug. I'm sure I looked like a pathetic creature in this moment but she didn't hold it against me.
"I'm actually meeting some friends after this so I have to go," she said.
I understood. I don't think our meetup was how we imagined it would play out but I was grateful for the opportunity to say some sort of final good-bye and hopefully a few words of appreciation.
Left alone in Riverside, I called one of my best friends and let him know what had just happened. Still emotional with tears in my eyes, I said, "This wasn't how I thought any of this would play out. This wasn't what was supposed to happen." The cumulative disappointments from Korea and my relationship emerged all at once. How could I be so dumb? How could I let this happen?
When I lived in Korea, I had a friend in Busan that I knew from college. We were out one night on a walk next to a creek in 수안동, where I told him my hopes for my relationship, "We're going to get married," I said. I was so confident.
He looked at me with skepticism: "Look, I get it. I've been there before too. Sometimes you have an idea about a person and you end up being wrong. That's okay."
"No, this is different. I'm sure about this," I said smiling, leaning against a railing over the water, looking up at the moon.
On the phone, my friend responded, "There’s no way that anything is supposed to happen." I knew he was right but it didn't necessarily make me feel better. "Why don't you come downtown and join me and S for pizza. We're going to this place we found in Hell's Kitchen."
Despite worrying about potentially third wheeling my friend and his girlfriend, I felt hungry from all the tears so I agreed.