Seeing Myself, Seeing Korea
Until I left Korea, I thought I knew it inside out. My family had lived there for generations—it was the land where I was born and raised. I figured there wasn’t much left for me to question.
But distance loosened that certainty.
Looking back from afar, everyday scenes I’d always taken for granted suddenly seemed to ask for an explanation. And the more I tried to explain them, the more I caught myself getting defensive before any real logic kicked in.
We all tend to make sense of the world through what we’ve seen, heard, and lived. But change the backdrop of your life, and your whole view of things shifts along with it.
The Korea you’ll meet in these essays isn’t here to be judged good or bad. It’s simply an encounter with something different. Ways of living don’t spring up overnight—they’re what’s left behind from years of history, the slow buildup of everything people have gone through, quietly settling into daily life.
That’s why these essays don’t hurry to explain Korea, or defend it, or pass judgment on it. They just lay out the scenes as they are, seen from a spot slightly off to the side.
For anyone curious about Korea, I’m not handing out one definitive answer. I’m only offering one possible way of looking.
Korea Explained is my own record of turning around to look back at myself.
— Sampajano, an observer with equanimity