Back to Where We Came From

My Story

I am now studying in Korea as an exchange student from Germany, but I grew up in Japan. However, when I was born in Japan, I was not a Japanese. That was because my families were originally from Korea, and I also became Korean automatically. I could not speak Korean, even had never been there, and we changed our nationality to Japanese in the end.

However, even though I changed my attribute, it cannot change our history, so Korea was somewhere I have wanted to go for so long. I was studying in Germany for two years, then I found out that I could be on an exchange semester in any country I wanted. I was not interested in that so much in the beginning since my life in Germany was already adventurous enough, but I noticed that I could actually live in Korea.

I want to write about how my life in Korea in the future if I am not lazy then, but that will be on another post.

Where We Actually Came From?

My university in Korea was Korea University in Seoul, however, where our family is from is literally on the opposite side of the country. My dad gave me an address of the exact location, which turned out to be invalid as an address later.

As I was lazy and a bit busy for many things living my life in Korea, I had not been there till yesterday, and I had only a week before I get back to Japan. So, I decided to do a day trip to where we came from.

Also, I broke my iPhone badly a few weeks before (it was run over by a car!), and I repaired the screen but not the rear camera, so I took all the photos with my old Russian film camera, Lomo LC-A, which I bought on “Yahoo Auctions!” (smth like eBay) 5 years ago.

It might be broken for the exposure sensor, and I have not developed photos yet, so I do not know whether photos are taken good or not at the point I am writing this.

The Way to Get There

Since I am bad at planning, I went there without planning anything as always. I only had a day because I wanted to study for the finals in the next week. Also, I was doing the homework till very late on the day before, and I barely slept.

I got on KTX from Seoul to Suncheon though I almost missed it because I made a mistake on change for subway. it was two and a half hours to get to Suncheon station. First, I got out of the station and found the tourist guide station, so I got in there. I told them that I want to get to the place where our family is from, and told them the address that I got from dad. And they were like… “Where is this…?” maybe the address was too old.

I decided to get to 월등면 (Woldeungmyeon), which I assumed the closest place to the village where my family is from. But the issue was there were only four buses and took one hour from the station. It was literally in the middle of nowhere, and I could easily lose a way back if I missed the bus. So I needed to make a decision of “risking my life to see the place” or “enjoying the sightseeing and give up”. I knew nothing about the place, and I do not speak Korean. The winter in Korea is too cold to sleep outside.

The interesting part was actually one of the people at the tourist guide spot had the same surname as mine, and she told her family is also from there. Probably, she was one of my distant relatives, and I felt that I am getting close to my origin.

My Origin (Supposedly…)

Anyway, I decided to get to the place, and took a bus. After one hour, I arrived in the centre of the place 월등면 (Woldeungmyeon). I decided to get into the city office because there was no other thing I could have done (no cafe, convenience store, whatsoever…).

As soon as I got in and asked them “Can you speak English?”, they were so confused. Nobody in that area would speak any language other than Korean, and I guess I was the first person in the history to speak English in that office.

Luckly, some of them could speak English somewhat, so I explained the situation. They tried to help me to look for the place as much as they could. One of them, who did not speak English at all, came to me, and silently gave me orange juice just smiling. Everybody there was so kind to me, willing to help me, and I really appreciated it. I guess that is a good thing about living in a remote place. Without them, I could not do anything there.

Also, there were several people with the same surname as mine, and we took the picture together as supposedly distant relatives.

One of them there decided to guide me in the village. He put me in his Hyundai, and showed me many things, such as a temple, traditional houses, and so on. That place was quite a rural place, and there were not many things, but it had the history. There was a temple that my family was believing in (supposedly), and traditional houses for noble people from hundreds of years ago.

In the end

The guy showed me many things around there, and it was really lovely and thoughtful for me to look how my origin was. I guess that was my original reason I decided to go to Korea, and at least, I achieved it. I developed the film photos, so I am going to put a few of them here.

Sadly, it was cloudy when I visited, but in the season of peach, it becomes really beautiful :)

(from some random Korean website)