“What about the language?” Whatever I don’t understand, I can handle with a translation app. “And your dog?” He’s coming with. “What about your apartment?” Maybe I’ll just rent it out so I have extra income. “Wow, you’ve really thought about this, haven’t you?” You betcha!

There are areas of life where I don’t like the unknown or even change: schedules, my beverage at Starbucks, my diet. But moving to Korea would be an improvement, why would I hesitate?

But I’m no dumb dumb. I’m not packing my stuff and just leaving. What my friend doesn’t know is that I would be moving with savings, an income, and assistance from the Korean government due to being a direct descendant of two patriots.

If you were to ask me if I would move to Paris tomorrow…that would be a whole other ball of wax. Nope. Not without some serious logistics and financial freedom in place.

Moving to Korea would be a marked improvement. Because not all unknowns feel the same.

Some feel like going from being a hermit to being a hermit in the right hermitage.

Some feel like expansion. Other’s feel like recovering something you lost before you were born.

The phrase “the hermit kingdom” was popularized by American author William Elliot Griffis in his 1882 book, Corea: The Hermit Nation.

When Gojong was crowned king at the age of 12, his father became regent1 or Daewongun.

He pushed the “hermit” policy of no treaties, no trade, no Catholics, and no West. He believed that if you accepted a Western God, you would eventually accept a Western King.

He conducted a persecution of Korean Catholics that resulted in the massacre of ten thousand men, women and children.

His attacks on the Catholics came to the attention of the French and a squadron of French Navy vessels moved against Joseon in 1866.

The Joseon army was able to drive them away, but the door to the outside was opened, and remained open.

Someone Kicking Down the Door to Your Life

The Joseon Dynasty’s isolation was only from the West, not from reality.

It wasn’t paranoia. It was a calculated decision based on what was happening in China and Japan, whose doors had been forced open by the West.

Koreans didn’t close the door because they were afraid.
They closed it because they understood something we don’t like to admit: who you let in will eventually shape what you become.

I go on a date with a man who seems perfectly normal and soft-spoken. I open the door to the hermitage.

It turns out he’s anti-science and anti-history.

I take him to the Museum of Anthropology, one of the best in the Mexico. We see skulls found here from different anthropological eras. He smirks (BIG mistake…no nunchi) and says, “You DO know those were planted, right?”

So many things bother me about that sentence.

But most of all, I’m upset that I opened that door myself.

We go to lunch but I’ve mentally shut the door and doubled locked it. It’s a Japanese restaurant. The server brings out plates and chopsticks. Skull boy asks for a fork.

“Would you like to learn how to use chopsticks? It’s easy, look…” I say. He replies, “I don’t need to use chopsticks, I’m American.”

In my mind, a dozen monks are nailing the doors to the hermitage shut permanently.

I wondered how long I had ignored things I should have noticed earlier.

In the modern world, the outside doesn’t always arrive with armies.

It arrives quietly.

Through what you scroll.
Through what you start normalizing without noticing it’s happening.

You just start agreeing with things you wouldn’t have tolerated before.

In my case, the prehistoric skulls was not the first red flag. They were just the first one I couldn’t ignore anymore.

The Daewongun feared not just invasion. He feared outside influence.

Different belief systems.
New values. Or the lack thereof.
New ways of seeing yourself.

He wasn’t just trying to keep people out.

He was trying to keep Korea… Korean.

Invasion of the Hermit Kingdom

The Daewongun had been right about one thing: opening the doors to the Kingdom an inch, would lead to them being kicked in by foreigners.

In 1910, Japan annexed Korea to Japan.

People inside the system opened the door.
And once it was open, control was gone for the next 35 years.

Losing Your Identity

Guess what was the first thing the Koreans lost?

Their language and their names. They were legally obligated to learn Japanese and to adopt a Japanese name.

The Daewongun had been right.

My great-grandfather and mother and my grandfather no longer had a nation to return to. They were trapped in Mexico, stateless.

Most of us don’t lose ourselves loudly.
We lose ourselves by adjusting. By tolerating. By letting things in we never meant to.

Sometimes, the best you can do is to keep the door closed until you are strong enough to greet the outside on your own terms.

Fear is not always irrational.
Sometimes it’s protective. Prophetic.

Finding the Right Moment to Open the Hermitage

You don’t lose yourself all at once.

You lose yourself slowly… and by the time you notice, you’re already living someone else’s version of your life.

The Hermit Kingdom wasn’t just afraid of the outside.

It was afraid of disappearing.

Take a second.
Look at what you’ve let in.

And ask yourself if it still belongs there.

I remember it vividly. I’m walking with my great-aunt to her shop. She’s promised to buy me a toy.

A tiger is near. I feel her hold my hand tighter and pull me across the street. I hear the tiger roar, “Hey, ching-chong, go back to your own effing country!”

My great-aunt says under her breath, “C’mon, honey, don’t listen to him. Walk faster. He’s dangerous.”

On another day, my one-armed great-uncle walks home from the shop. He says, “An effing tiger tried to rob me. I laughed in his face and said, ‘Do I look like I have money? I’ve been wearing this sweater for 20 years.’ He called me an effing Chinese piece of trash and left.”

I learned early on that it’s dangerous outside. There are tigers…horangi everywhere. Even today, someone raising their voice at me makes my heart beat a little faster…maybe they’re warning me the tigers are coming.

The Time of Tigers Has Passed

I hesitate to do something for fear the tigers are roaming. But I keep reminding myself that was someone else’s life.

The life of a family that was once surrounded by horangi. But that time has passed.

In 1905, my family traveled across the world with their meager belongings wrapped in bojagi, carrying the ghosts of tigers in their soul.

The tigers of starvation, of not having enough, of spending, of the unknown.

What remains from 1905 is my hyper-awareness. My fear of poverty. My discomfort at being idle.

A Mirror…?

I’ve been having nightmares lately. A horangi is chasing me in one of them. But then I turn around to see how close it is and it has my face.

My ancestors are telling me I’m fierce, strong, powerful.

They’re whispering, “don’t hold back, BE the tiger. Don’t play small. Don’t spend your life saving everything for a rainy day.”

“You’re making decisions like something is about to be taken from you.”

Yeah. That’s me, alright.

The problem isn’t fear.
It’s not knowing which fears still deserve your attention.

Read more

One of the directors is looking down at the table. Everyone is avoiding looking at him. My boss is looking directly at the man looking down at the table. Oh, he’s in trouble.

My boss tells me to sit down beside him and to translate every single word exactly as he says it. He wants me to translate the temperature, not just the words. Oh, man, I would have had decaf if I’d known I was going into battle.

I’ve met the Canadian businessman looking down at the table. And I am about to look straight into his eyes and insult him. If I don’t use the precise tone my boss is using, I will be the one in trouble. Sorry, guy, I actually like you but I have to do this right.

It’s not the first time I interpret swearing and cursing, but I’ve usually done it in the context of translating dirty jokes, not negotiations over the purchase of a plane.

I am absorbing my boss’s anger and spitting it out at a stranger. What a way to start the day.

Korean Mudang: Spiritual Translators

In Korea, shamans are known as mudang or manshin. They are mediators between the world of the living and the spirit world. They translate what people in the other world are trying to tell us.

They take the grief, anger, fear, resentment of the living and the dead, absorb it into themselves, and release it through voice, song, and movement.

A ritual or gut can last up to 10 hours, and the emotional exhaustion that is absorbed from both worlds during that time is one of the reasons for the high cost shamans command.

Modern Shamans

Modern society still relies on emotional absorbers. They don’t get recognition or release. They don’t use drumming or chanting but they too absorb feelings.

The colleague who smooths tension before it escalates.
The daughter who translates between generations.
The partner who carries the emotional weather of the household.
The leader who absorbs anxiety so the team can function.

Modern systems quietly depend on people who regulate the emotional climate. And those people often don’t realize that’s what they’re doing.

They were trained for years, often from childhood. They tried to calm down parents who were arguing. They could feel when someone was feeling “off”. They held family systems together, and carried cultural burdens.

Since these people aren’t hereditary or trained shamans, what they absorb has nowhere to go. To them, empathy becomes tension in the neck, irritability, hyper vigilance, constant fatigue.

Not because the person is fragile. Because they are carrying what isn’t theirs alone.

In older societies, this role was visible. Now it is invisible but constant.

We pathologize the absorber. You’re too sensitive. Why do you keep engaging with these people? You need a therapist. Ignore their arguments. Just step out of the room. You’re making yourself sick!

We rarely examine the system that relies on them.

Same Function, No Robes.

If you had a drummer, bells, long robes and incense, you’d at least be acknowledged for the role you’ve been playing: noticing someone who hasn’t said a word, redirecting conversations before they explode, timing when to speak and when silence will calm the room, or translating someone’s words with a softer tone.

If you are the one who absorbs tension in every room, you’re not the fragile one. You’re performing an ancient function in a modern system.

Shamans historically absorbed, carried, and metabolized collective emotion. And no one can carry the room forever without somewhere to put it down.

I am listening to my boss shout into my left ear, as I interpret, looking at the Canadian man. I try to keep my face neutral, but the anger and swearing make me look irate. This goes on for several minutes, as the Canadian looks between me and my boss.

When the meeting is over, 2 hours later, I walk straight to my office. I sit there and unclench my teeth. My throat is burning and I’m exhausted. I don’t know why.

Releasing the Emotions You Absorb

What we emotional mediators need is somewhere to release what we’re carrying. Not being irritable and snapping at people. Not being exhausted but sleepless. Not being resentful.

We’re exhausted after one of these emotional translation sessions because we aren’t just interpreting words. We’re carrying a room full of feelings that are not ours.

I’m in Lausanne, Switzerland at the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The hearing started at 9 a.m. and ended at 6 p.m. One of the lawyers for the opposing side was particularly rude for no reason at all, since I’m only an interpreter. I am dehydrated, my throat is sore, and my back is killing me.

The moment my boss says thanks me and says goodbye for the day, I start walking along the lake. Being alone is already infusing me with life. If it entered through my body, it must leave through my body. So I breathe deeply and let all the beauty take the place of the shouting and bad vibes in the courtroom.

I pass by a boutique and go inside, browsing through the clothes. As time goes by, I can feel the poison leaving my body. A poison that wasn’t mine. My steps are lighter.

I can’t let what belongs to me and what belongs to them mesh together.
Not every emotion requires a response. That aggressive lawyer can drink a cup of his own poison for dinner.

You were never too sensitive. You were trained to carry what others couldn’t.

Being the emotional translator in the room is a gift.
But only if you learn where to put the translation down.

There is a frisson of excitement all around us as girls, boys, women and men talk excitedly about what songs they want to hear, what they think the guys will be wearing, showing each other the merch they bought.

One girl is sitting alone in the row in front of us. She constantly shuffles her feet and adjusts her dress. Suddenly, out of the blue, she turns to us and asks, “Who’s your bias? Mine’s Jin.”

In the world of K-pop, your “bias” is your favorite in the group. I tell her mine’s Jungkook. She smiles and turns back to face the stage. A shy one who was dying to share. I think that’s beautiful.

Then a girl comes with “excuse me, excuse me” and as we stand so she can get to her seat, she gives each of us a little gift bag of photo cards of the group. We feel Jeong ( /jung/ ), a warm feeling between people who share a bond. The bond of loving BTS.

We share jeong because we are one tonight. Because we have a shared history of knowing this group, loving its members, their music, their culture. This unity has been one forged for the past 15 years.

And then the concert ends.

The lights come on.
People gather their things.
We smile at each other one last time and walk out into the night…alone.

That feeling disappears almost as quickly as it arrived.

A few hours of effortless connection. Of oneness.

Somewhere along the way, it became harder to feel close to people…and easier to live without them.

In Korea, there’s a word for that feeling. And it doesn’t disappear as easily as we do.

Read more

One emblem shows I co-authored a book on Korean history funded by the Korean Ministry of Education: History of Korea.

The emblem on my other shoulder represents being a language teacher for 15 years.

The emblem on my chest is a dragon carrying the Olympic rings for a 25-year career in the world of sports as a translator, executive secretary, and editor.

I wear my robe proudly paired with some fierce high heels to a job interview with a publisher. My outfit says: This woman knows what she’s doing. Hire her.

But there are moments where your entire life’s work doesn’t count.

The editor ignores the dragons on my ceremonial résumé robe. She wants diplomas, credentials, academic history, my social media handles.

I sigh and take out my résumé.

Hierarchy Embroidered on Silk

In Joseon Korea (1392-1897) kings and princes wore a silk robe with emblems embroidered on the chest, the back, and the shoulders.

Kings wore the Five-Clawed Dragon robe. The dragon represented the king’s authority over the natural world and his duty to protect the nation.

Crown Princes (heirs to the kings) wore the Four-Clawed Dragon robe, usually blue silk.

What Happens When No One Can See Your Credentials

If the king or prince were to do something crazy like leave the palace dressed as nobles, people would not have known who they were. Portraits were not seen by the public, there were no photos, no one knew what their monarchs looked like.

If the king left the palace on a procession (painting below), commoners had to get down on their knees and touch their forehead to the ground. Peeking was not a good idea because it usually led to flogging or execution.

But commoners knew about the dragon robes. No matter who the king was, if he wore the dragon robe, everyone would know who was wearing it.

In this sense, we are all royalty. If we leave the house without our LinkedIn app, we disappear. Authority exists only when people can recognize it.

Authority is what others agree to see.

How Do I Prove My Value?

I don’t have a dragon robe that represents my position in the world, what I’ve done, who I am…my personal “brand”.

I was a translator in a meeting at the Presidential Residence between my boss and Korean President Lee Myung-bak in 2013. “Do you have documents to back that up?” Um, I have a photograph that was presented to each of us at the Blue House.

I mean…I couldn’t exactly ask the President of the nation for a letter of recommendation, could I? Should I pull out the photo and add it to the résumé?

I was in the room. I did the work. I just can’t prove it in a format they trust.

Without the robe, I’m just another person in the room explaining who I am again.

If you had to embroider four symbols on your shoulders, chest, and back that represented who you are, a résumé robe, what would they be?

Modern authority is invisible so it is continuously re-argued.

Without résumés, credentials, proof of reputation, published articles, people assume you’re a beginner.

You walk into a meeting and have to re-explain your background
A younger colleague questions your expertise.
Someone asks “What exactly do you do?”

Your experience doesn’t appear in the format they expect.

Your authority is not visible. So you have to re-narrate it. And it’s exhausting.

You keep proving yourself. Again. And again. And again.

Not because you lack authority. But because no one can see it.

Wearing Fake Dragons

Sometimes people wear impressive robes but have no authority. CEOs without competence. Influencers without knowledge. “Experts” with iffy credentials.

This is the modern distortion of the robe system. Today, symbols sometimes replace authority.

I’m walking with my boss around an Olympic venue prior to the Games. He’s wearing a jogging suit. He’s got no meetings that day. But I do, so I’m wearing a black dress with high heels. People who approach us keep looking at me as they ask questions. They give ME their business cards.

If only they knew he’s the President of one of the Olympic sports. I guess they expected the dragon robe and got joggers.

We all wear robes.
Some embroidered with titles.
Some embroidered with experience.
Some invisible.

In Joseon Korea the robe came with the position. Today we build our own robes. A reputation, a body of work, a visible record of competence. Without those signals, authority remains invisible. And invisible authority is constantly questioned.

So what are you wearing when you walk into a room?
And more importantly… who taught you what counts as a real robe?

Accept, Reject or Play?

We can reject the game and define our own authority…unless it’s in pictures, then…good luck.

We can understand the game, stop taking it personally and get letters, receipts, and anything that proves you wear the 5-clawed robe.

Who would read it?! “You’ve had an incredible life that people would find fascinating.”

Who would buy it?! “What do you care? It’s something for YOU!”

I don’t know…I mean, what if nobody buys it or nobody READS it? I would lose so much face, I wouldn’t be able to find it with a mirror. There are people whose names I would have to get permission to use…OMG the logistics!

Anyway, I’m still thinking about it.

The Risk of Being Seen

Do you have a project you’re sitting on because: “What if I embarrass myself?” “What if people think I’m not as competent as I seem?” “What if I ruin what I’ve built?” “What if I look unstable?” “What if they think I’m making it all up?”

Do you have something to say in meetings but you bite your tongue? “What if I’m wrong? I’ll just wait and see what the others say.”

If I post an article on LinkedIn they’ll want to know who I am, what my credentials are. Will they think I’m faking it?

Oh, who am I trying to fool here? I’m not afraid of failure.

I’m afraid of the humiliation of losing face.

Okay, okay, let’s play it out: I write the story of my life. It’s a interesting story and it’s pretty unique. The process of writing it will itself will be fun. That’s a plus. I can self-publish so I don’t need to go from editor to editor and be rejected.

How do I know I’ll be rejected? I don’t. It’s an assumption. Go with it.

The book sits on the digital shelves for months with only 10 purchases, my sister and my friends.

On the other hand, I don’t write it. It continues to be a fantasy. No loss.

No gain.

Read more

No fights. No drama.
Just… friction you couldn’t explain.

Mismatched gyeol.

The texture of someone’s breath. Could there be anything more romantic and precise for a description?

The texture of her breath was like a soft wind blowing through gardenias at dusk.

I’ll never forget the texture of his breath. It was the raspy whisper of a wooden temple bell in the darkness.

How about…

I swayed to the beat of the drum and the chanting of the shaman. I shivered as the wind ran through my hair, weaving between strands a feeling of being watched by someone invisible.

Human Gyeol

Human texture is not a mood, but a permanent part of who you are.

The grain of breath. The rhythm or feel of someone’s breathing.
The ripple of water.
The texture of someone’s heart.

Even when people are in the same profession or family, their gyeol is different.

When Koreans say, “Our gyeol matches,” it means people move to the same frequency or rhythm. They have the same invisible texture.

Years ago, I broke up with a guy because we had different gyeol. I didn’t know how explain it. He insisted we could fix it.

But we just had a different grain to our surface. Different pace. Different values. Different way of moving through life. We didn’t have matching grain.

We went against the textures of nature.

When you ignore gyeol, life becomes effort.

Relationships
Environments
Jobs

And then, there’s effortlessness…the texture of the skin, heart, and breath of people who just match. It’s like caressing a newly cut piece of wood with the tips of your fingers to find out which way the grain runs.

And the wonderful surprise of realizing it runs in the same direction as yours.

In modern Korean conversation, you might hear someone say, “I like that person, our gyeol matches.” It implies an effortless, natural compatibility.

I have a dear friend whom I’ve had the privilege of knowing for more than 30 years.

I used to think the texture that made us similar was that we’re both Asian, he’s Chinese and I’m Korean. That we had similar upbringings.

But no. It’s that our human grain matches.

Respecting the Material of Your Life

A carpenter reads the gyeol to determine how the wood should be used and cut. Fighting the grain is a lack of skill and a lack of respect for the material.

Willingly disrespecting your gyeol, as I learned the hard way, usually ends badly.

You don’t fix misalignment by trying harder.
You recognize it by how much effort it requires.
You get a lot of splinters on your fingers when you run your hand against the grain.

You recognize matching gyeol when it feels smooth and effortless.

Leaving your workplace feeling despondent, anxious, humiliated, or hopeless tells you exactly how badly your gyeol matches with the one or ones who produce these feelings.

Matching Textures

You don’t feel misalignment all at once. You feel it in how much work it takes to be yourself.

In the conversations that drain you.
In the silences that feel heavy instead of calm.
In the constant sense that something is slightly… off.

So you try harder. You adjust. You explain. You stay longer than you should.

Because effort feels like commitment. But it isn’t.

Sometimes effort is the signal.

Not that something needs more work…but that it was never right for you.

It happens slowly… through loyalty, gratitude, and not wanting to be difficult.

My boss was sometimes grouchy. Sometimes unfair. But he was always generous. So it became common for me to make excuses for any unfairness because, after all, he had helped me during family crises.

When he passed away and I stepped away from the corporation, and my resignation was elegantly accepted. I felt wronged. I had naively believed that after 25 years during which they knew how I worked and what I was like as a person, I would be asked to stay.

I gave 25 years. I expected recognition. I got politeness.

Politeness is often how institutions replace loyalty when they no longer need it.

And guess what I did? I made excuses for that person. He was very polite and a complete gentleman, the family had always been lovely to me. He offered to help if I ever needed it.

I needed it at that moment. I wanted my work to be valued and for it to continue. I needed someone to say, “She’s not just anyone. She’s been SOLID for 25 years. She was there whenever my father needed her. She stays.”

But if someone is nice to me, I have to be a manmanhan saram, which in Korean means a pushover.

If this feels familiar, you already know which role you’ve been playing. I know which role I have been playing.

Someone safe to disappoint. Someone who won’t retaliate. Someone whose boundaries don’t hold. Manmanhan saram.

Read more

I shake hands with some and hug others. We’re friendly. Many of them are people I truly like.

It would be a burden to them to know that I’m exhausted and my back is killing me. I absorb the discomfort so the group doesn’t have to.

It’s important to maintain the harmony of the event. I don’t get paid to be honest. I get paid to be efficient and friendly.

Three hours later, back in my room, I take off my makeup and flop down on the bed. This is my honne face. The true me. I finally show my pain and stop smiling.

I love the job but not being authentic for 12 hours takes a toll on you mentally and physically. I’ve been dying to rub my neck and shoulders all day. I would have skipped dinner for some sleep.

But my authentic feelings would have had to have been absorb by the others. That’s not part of my job.

Our identity is layered. We show different selves to different people.

Diplomacy and parenting seem worlds apart, but the same rule operates in both: someone must carry the emotional burden.

Different cultures solve the same problem differently: where does the emotional burden go?

At a restaurant, one woman says to another, “I’m sorry if this sounds harsh…” (Oh, boy, here we go…) “…but if my kids want to run around the restaurant, what do you want me to do?! They’re kids, for heaven’s sake!”

The woman is being authentic. And she’s redistributed inconvenience.

Authenticity is not neutral. It costs someone something.

Freedom is sacred.

Freedom we offload onto others is a transfer they didn’t ask for. I’m not free to transfer MY freedom to your emotional, mental, physical bank account.

The Three Faces of the Japanese. We All Wear Them.

Japanese wa or harmony is the practice of maintaining stability in society. Three faces are necessary to maintain harmony.

Tatemae, the face we show the world. The intimate face, for friends and family. Honne, our true thoughts and desires.

We change faces to avoid offending, be considerate, maintain peace, avoid losing allies and friends.

I’m Just Being Me

Modern culture often collapses the three faces into one and calls that integrity. A right everyone is entitled to. In an ideal world, it would be OK to say:

“I’m just being honest.”
“Just being real.”
“I don’t filter myself.”

Authenticity culture pushes emotion outward. Someone else absorbs it.

If I’m authentic, I’m going to say things that are going to offend someone. Here, hold this burden of authenticity for me. Oh, did I offend your spiritual beliefs? Your dignity? But I was just being me.

Now my emotions live in someone else’s mind. They’re someone else’s burden now.

The Art of Living in Society

In a collectivist society like Korea’s, an individual’s mistake isn’t just their own; it ripples. If you’re loud on a bus, just “being yourself,” you’re stealing the peace of 40 people.

I’m on a train from Seoul to Busan. I open Instagram and forget to turn the volume down. A post blares k-pop and the steward runs to me and tells me to use earbuds. I forgot to read the room.

People are on the train going to work or sleeping or working and I’m over here having a social media party. Soooooorry! I’ve placed the burden of having to scold me on this man. I have annoyed all those sitting in the same area.

Nunchi, Korean for “reading the room,” is a skill that allows us to be considerate of the feelings of others.

To force someone to ask you to stop doing something annoying is a failure of your Nunchi. You have placed the “burden of confrontation” on them.

Consideration for others includes understanding that everyone carries hidden struggles that we don’t see. One of their three faces is protecting a struggle, a health problem, or a financial worry.

However, harmony systems are not free. Chronic suppression can lead to stress, somatic symptoms, indirect aggression, or displacement.

Emotions don’t disappear. They move. The system just decides who carries them.

After a full day of work, the boss invites his team to dinner. The mask must stay on for a few more hours. It’s just dinner, but it feels like work. So today you work 12 hours plus commuting time.

You get in your car and drop the mask. The smile comes off, the anger of being obligated to attend a team dinner is evident. Your phone rings. Your partner. You don’t pick up. This is not the right time for loving words.

Unfortunately, your partner is going to carry your silence for a while. Emotions don’t disappear, they move somewhere.

Face: Saving It, Losing It, Having It

The concept of face refers to social standing, dignity, honor, and reputation. Causing someone embarrassment is to make them lose face. To avoid burdening them is to protect their dignity.

Say I decide to let my warm Latin style out. I hug a Korean I only know superficially.

In some contexts, like parts of East Asia, unsolicited hugs can feel less like warmth and more like crossing a line. I have lost face by placing the burden on them of being embarrassed.

Have you ever told a "kind lie" not to save your own skin, but to save someone’s face (pride)? “Oh, my goodness, did I just kick you under the table?” Me: “No, no, you must have brushed the leg of the chair.”

Why burden someone with embarrassment or loss of face?

Authenticity is not the absence of restraint. It’s the wisdom to know where and with whom to remove it.

When you insist on being yourself, someone else is doing the emotional labor of absorbing you.

People don’t always say anything.

They just remember how they felt around you.

And adjust accordingly.

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In the photo below, I am breaking two Korean rules: showing my arms and the arms are tan. Dumb choice or bold choice? I call it “no other choice.”

At first, I didn’t notice. It was one month after Korea had reopened after the pandemic and there were hardly any people in tourist sites and restaurants. So naive.

The following year, my sister said that nobody was wearing sleeveless clothing.

Huh? Nah! Yeah?! OMG, you’re right! Damn it…I’m gonna put on my jacket (the one I have tied to my waist in the photo below. It was a moment when I felt I was going to pass out from heatstroke).

Honestly, I wore that jacket as often as I could…mainly indoors. But I bit the judgment bullet and pretended not to see people looking at my arms AKA meat sticks.

But, what you wear is not just self-expression.

It’s social negotiation.

Because when you get it wrong, other people have to carry the discomfort.

And Koreans don’t like to burden others.

Korean fashion pushes boundaries but always with limits and those are mainly: no exposed shoulders, chest, or back.

But this is where exceptions come in: if you’re a K-pop star, you can wear whatever you want. I know. Life is never fair. For me it’s: no shoulders! No bony breast bone!

But it’s boiling outside, I just walked out of the hotel and I’m already sweating! No shoulders & bony breast bone, for you!

Some people get punished and others are celebrated.

Who’s allowed to break the rules? People who chose careers that are fashion flexible and actually get paid to stand out.

Do you and I get to stand out? Not if there’s a hierarchy and we’re not at the top. Not if visibility has strict rules (expensive bag and shoes, don’t embarrass the group, don’t make yourself memorable for the wrong reason).

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The hat changes the posture of these men. It represents dignity, discipline, and social hierarchy. The choreography is a conversation between centuries.

The gat and the clothing are almost transparent. The dancers move like ghosts from the past. History doesn’t disappear. It becomes translucent.

This is jeongjungdong, movement within stillness or stillness within motion. Something powerful is moving quietly on the stage. History moves like this is our lives. So slowly, we barely notice it happening.

The Yunbyul Ballet Company

The Worldview of the Gat

The gat was worn primarily during the Joseon Dynasty (1392–1910) by male aristocrats, government officials, and scholars.

It represented a worldview based on a rigid hierarchical order. Those at the top, the yangban, inherited their power as well as the authority to wear specific items of clothing.

The gat reflected a man’s background. His status is the world and how he should be treated.

Today, we don’t wear a gat that shows the world who we are. We wear our résumé robe of diplomas, job titles, LinkedIn profiles, credentials, and medical histories.

History is Happening Now

Did you design your life?

By midlife, many of us begin to suspect that we didn’t.

We talk about history as if it were behind us. But it’s actually happening at this moment. It’s in what you choose to read, in the way you’re standing, in the way you work, in the things you value.

What jobs do you consider respectable? What are you afraid of? Where did you pick up your habits? Your posture? What are your career expectations?

All this came from your cultural DNA. From the social class you were born into. From your family history.

We inherited how success should look.

My history taught me that stability is more important than curiosity. I could have started to grow sooner, but history taught me to choose safety and I stayed in roles and relationships too long.

The dance of my relationships could have been shorter…but I had invested so much in learning the steps and the hat fit me so well…learning new choreography would be such a hassle.

My heritage taught me fear of not being respected. I didn’t realize that respect comes in many shapes.

Just like the gat shaped the posture of Joseon scholars, inherited values shape the posture of the present. The hats may have disappeared, but we still spend our lives proving we deserve to wear one.

We run around trying to prove we’re legitimate, performing to show our worth, always afraid of losing status.

Our life is choreography we didn’t choose. And most of us don’t question it until it starts costing us something.

“How long have you worked at your current job?” Twenty-five years. “That’s a long time. You must be very passionate about what you do.” Yes. I guess. No, definitely. Or was I comfortable and afraid of the unknown? Am I just performing the same steps of this dance over and over again? Should I be moving on to a new dance? But then, what happens to the legitimacy I have built over the years?

Breaking the Choreography: Dancing Our Own Dance

What happens when someone refuses to dance to the inherited steps?

What if you decide that the dance history mapped out for you is not what you want anymore? Maybe you decide you were born in the wrong country?

The dancers in the Yunbyul Dance Company shown here are not simply repeating the past. They are transforming it.

The clothing is transparent.
The choreography is modern.
Women are wearing the gat, historically only worn by men.

The dancers are doing two things at once: rewriting history while carrying it forward.

History still moves inside us, but we can decide how we move with it.

Heritage is not a prison.

The dancers of Yunbyul Ballet move with the elegance of another century. Watching them, I realized that history never disappears. It becomes lighter, more translucent, until a new generation begins to move inside it and quietly changes the choreography.

We have room to try new steps. In fact, we’re already changing the dance, whether we realize it or not.

Discomfort is the price of growth. Once we stand still or refuse to change the choreography, we stop growing.

The scene: a café in Mexico City. The offense: After asking me if I have a Starbucks card, the barista asks, “So, where are you from?” I know he means “Where are you REALLY from?” I reply, Korea (I don’t need to go into my family history, so I answer what I know he wants to hear). “Oh, really? North or South Korea?”

Suddenly I’m standing at the intersection of geopolitics and caffeine.

My mind goes through so many thoughts in fractions of a second.

LOL, I know, right?

Oh, he’s not kidding.

Is he being “sarcastic”? Racist doesn’t apply…geographist? Historist?

He must have gone to a terrible school. I wonder if he’s read a book.

Should I explain the political and historical reasons why I can’t be from North Korea?

I wasn’t prepared to give a TED Talk.

Sigh. I’m so tired…

We were just making small talk and now I have to summarize war, trauma, and diaspora in the time it takes for you to make my coffee.

Since then, I have been asked this question several times. And I’m always caught off-guard.

That moment when you know someone has already shoved you into a small, convenient box:

So, you’re just a stay-at-home-mom?
Starting a new career at 60, that’s SO brave!
You work at home? I’m so jealous. You get to wear pajamas all day.
You write? But what do you do for a LIVING?

It’s universal. Being crammed into a space too small for your spirit is a denial of your full, messy, evolving humanity.

Changing Shapes to Make You Fit

Wait, Wait! Stop shoving me in the triangle box! I don’t fit in there! You’re bending my knees the wrong way! Ow, that hurts!

The Silk Street Market. Beijing 2008 Olympics.
The vendors shout at me in Mandarin. I shake my head and say I don’t speak the language.
They stare at my face and then look down at the accreditations hanging on a lanyard around my neck (photo below).
One girl notices my accreditation says MEX.
She says in broken English, “ID no you!”

Yes, it’s me. Mexico/Korea (pointing at my face).

She stares at the photo and at me and her eyes light up.
“Oooooh, Korea Mexico!”
She runs to the stall nextdoor for backup.

Suddenly I’m surrounded by girls trying to decide which box I belong in:

First, the China box: doesn’t fit.
Then the Mexico box: still doesn’t fit.
Then the Korea box: close, but the legs stick out.
Finally: Korean/Mexican/Olympics-shaped box. Perfect. Lid closes. Satisfaction achieved.

Honestly? Same, girl. Same.

Imagine a perfect classification box for yourself. How would you label it so you fit in it snug as a bug?

The American-expat-free-as-a-bird box? The single-and-fabulous-at-40 box? The looking-for-new-career-directions box?

I’m a Korean–Spanish woman raised in the U.S. and living in Mexico City.
I’m a writer, translator, traveler, student of Korean history, and an animal lover addicted to tea and Korean AI dogs living secret human lives.

Try to fit that in one box.

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Then I decided to teach myself to write Hangul, Korean letters, because I read that King Sejong (1446), who commissioned the creation of a Korean system of writing, wrote: “A wise man can acquaint himself with them before the morning is over; a stupid man can learn them in the space of ten days.”

I had ten days, a calligraphy pen and a new fancy notebook.

King Sejong did not let me down. I learned to read and write Korean. And Hangul opened the door to a whole new world of thoughts, expressions, and song lyrics that made my world wider.

To write. Sseuda…쓰다…even the sound feels like walking through a magical door…“SSUH-dah.”

Hangul: the Power of Writing

Chinese characters or hanja had for centuries been used to express Korean thoughts. Commoners couldn’t afford to learn to read and write.

A child would have to learn between 500 and 1,000 characters to write basic Hanja.

However, King Sejong thought commoners should be literate, so he created Hangul, which consisted of letters instead of characters (image below).

Elite scholars threw a tantrum and refused to use it. To them, Chinese characters locked the door to literacy.

Writing wasn’t just expression. It was status and exclusion. They were protecting their power structure. Opening that door would bring them down a peg.

Hangul enabled women and commoners to write letters, diaries, and novels. They were able to read royal edicts pasted on walls. These excluded sectors of the population were allowed to enter a new world of ideas.

Hangul democratized writing.

When Your Thoughts See the Light

Do you carry around a little notebook for when ideas pop into your head during the day? Do you hurry back home in the evening to develop them into an essay, article or part of a book? Exciting, isn’t it?

Once an idea leaves your head and enters the world through writing, the possibilities are endless. Your thoughts can turn into power or risk.

Because King Sejong made writing accessible, but he did not make it safe.

Your writing opens you up to criticism, to being corrected publicly and losing credibility, to say nothing of having your reputation and ego harmed by academics or simply haters.

Your thoughts can be misread. They can inspire. They can be screenshot and posted out of context. They can make someone smile or feel hope. Or they can make someone feel attacked.

And yet, we continue putting our thoughts down on paper. Because we feel passionate about writing…even when we feel like we should have a document that authorizes us to do so. A certificate. A passport?

Who Gets to Enter the World Through Text?

Writers. Authors. People who are published? People with diplomas? People with permission? Experts?

Who decides if you’re qualified? What credentials do you need to enter the world of writing? Our nobility are academia, credential culture, and the algorithm.

Even as I write this, I wonder if I have the authority to write about the Korean alphabet.

I am attaching my name to the thoughts I put out into the world. Once they’re out there…there’s no turning back.

I walk gingerly through my piece so as to not step on any “expert” toes. I reread my draft about 15 times and imagine people sneering or correcting me.

A little voice whispers as I write, “What gives you the authority to interpret the Korean culture?” The voice gives me anxiety and I wave it away. I hit “publish.”

Hangul gave people the ability to write.
It did not give them permission to be taken seriously.

We have access to writing, but not necessarily legitimacy. We have voice, but do we have recognition?

The risk isn’t writing. The risk is being ignored after we do.

License to Write

King Sejong gave commoners literacy, but not authority. He did not guarantee respect.

When Hangul was proclaimed as the new writing system for all Koreans, the nobility lost its collective mind. Their monopoly depended on difficulty.
The harder literacy was to access, the easier it was to control thought.

They protested and called the new alphabet eonmun (vulgar script). They kicked and screamed. Hangul survived. The nobility disappeared.

Some 580 years later, anyone can publish. But we don’t need permission to send our thoughts out into the world.

You change careers in midlife and suddenly you’re just out of college and trying to get people to give you a chance to prove yourself. Your résumé feels skinny compared to those who have been in the field for decades.

You’re not blocked by access.

You’re blocked by the belief that writing belongs to someone more qualified.

The King’s Permission

The problem was never the tool.
The problem was who got to use it.

So, I am using Hangul and the Roman alphabet to set my thoughts down on paper. I am a commoner. I inherited these precious gifts and I am using them.

King Sejong did not ask permission from the elite. He built a system that bypassed them.

Writing has always preceded approval. If commoners had waited to be recognized as scholars, Hangul would have died. Some of the most beautiful prose and poetry in the world was written by commoners without permission.

And every time someone without credentials publishes a thought, the old monopoly trembles a little.

I am not asking to be appointed an authority. I am writing because writing was made accessible to me. Because I can.

King Sejong did not create Hangul so we would wait for validation. He created it so we could enter the world of knowledge.

No one is stopping you.
Which means the only thing left is your decision to step forward… or stay silent.

This is the crossroads where we choose the discomfort of doing something without “permission” and the discomfort of regretting not doing it.

I finish watching a Korean TV series called “Doom at Your Service” and I feel heojeonhada. This series has been part of my nightly ritual for weeks. Now what will I watch. Sigh.

I return from a trip to the homeland. We’ve been living the palli-palli (quick-quick) lifestyle for 3 weeks.  After I unpack and get over the novelty of sleeping in my own bed again, there’s nothing but heojeonhada in my body.

The problem wasn’t that something ended.
It’s that my rituals ended with it, leaving behind heojeonhada.

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Huh?! I smile as I give the man my business card. Inside I feel panic because I don’t know what this man will ask for when he calls me. Why does my boss throw this responsibility on me?

I didn’t gain rank with this acknowledgment. But I gained trust and that’s more valuable to me.

There are moments in your career when someone else decides you are central and suddenly the spotlight is on you.

What happens when you are suddenly positioned at the center of something larger than yourself? Do you shrink or embrace the opportunity? Do you rise to the occasion with dignity and pride?

At Gwanghwamun Gate (photo above taken from my Uber), the main entrance to Gyeongbokgung Palace in Seoul, Korea, there is a raised central stone path called the Eodo or the King’s Road, so-called because only the king could walk on it. Everyone else had to walk on the sides or receive a punishment of 80 strikes of a rod.

This month, 630 years after the construction of this palace, seven performers will be walking down the King’s Road. When BTS walk that axis as Netflix streams their steps to 190 countries, it will be a moment of pride and huge responsibility.

For centuries the man who walked that path represented the fate of the kingdom.

Now seven musicians carry the cultural pride of a nation.

Why? Because their country believes they can do it. “Ask her. She knows” becomes “Let them use the palace. They know what to do.”

In the photo above and the map that below, you can see the King’s Road goes from number 1 to 4 of the diagram, a distance of about 1100 feet.

Who Are the Seven Men Allowed to Walk the King’s Road?

They have just finished their 2-year military service and they are part of a band capable of triggering “BTS-nomics” every time they hold a concert. One 3-day concert series generated $860 million in the country, attracting 187,000 tourists.

They don’t govern Korea.
They don’t command troops.

But they influence tourism, exports, language learning, the country’s global image, and even the GDP.

The King’s Road once signified inherited power. Now it will mark earned influence.

The group has become so universally strong that they are being allowed to walk the King’s Road toward the concert stage. Their government, the Korean people, and their fans all trust them to represent the nation royally.

Soft Power: Yours, Mine, Korea’s

Soft power influences preferences and behaviors. A nation can obtain its goals by being admired and respected for its music, television, movies, food, skin care, and fashion.

You possess soft power. And most of us accumulate it slowly without noticing. You’ve worked for years to become who you are as a human and a professional.

Or you might be in the middle of using your soft power to switch paths: the influence you’ve attained, the connections you’ve made, your credibility, your values and expertise.

You’re not a king or a CEO. But you have the knowledge and expertise to shape thought through your words, to be a cultural interpreter or to be the colleague that people consult when in doubt.

When the Air Shifts in Your Life

There are moments when someone points to us and says, “She knows.”

Suddenly the air shifts when someone sees accumulated competence that we’ve stopped noticing.

There’s a crisis in the family and everyone seems to think you’re the one to lean on.

You get a raise and, before you know it, you’ve bought a house. There’s a huge weight on your chest. A 30-year commitment is nothing to sneeze at. Those who don’t take risks don’t feel panic. But they also don’t grow.

You’re offered a job with better pay, greater responsibility, and a couple of duties you’re not sure you’re capable of executing.

What does it feel like to know you’re trusted more than you trust yourself?

Most of us will never walk through a palace gate. But sooner or later life places us on our own version of that path.

The question isn’t whether you feel ready. The question is whether you keep walking.

The BTS concert is scheduled to take place on March 21 at 8 p.m. and will be streamed live worldwide on Netflix. The perfect opportunity to see the King’s Road and the Palace.

Korean Shamanism is one of those cultural traditions that are controversial…but only when discussed publicly. In whispers, it is practiced by people of many religions and of no religion at all. Most shamans or mudang, as they are commonly called in Korea, are women.

It’s not something you go around telling everyone because shamanism is considered by many as “superstition.” And still, they are privately consulted by CEOs, families, and politicians.

I consider it ancient psychology. The shaman is a spiritual therapist, a mediator between worlds, a ghost whisperer, a crisis manager, a corporate consultant, an ancestral detective, a preserver of culture, a catharsis facilitator, a numerologist, a divinator, a geomancer, and a protector of communities.

I’ve needed a shaman in my life many times. To speak to my parents and see if they’re happy in the other world. To pick an auspicious day to travel, invest, sign a contract. To make a talisman for me against someone who is trying to harm me. To help me decide my next step in life.

I’m naturally a person who looks for proof. If someone says they know a shaman who seems legit, you can bet I’ll be finding them for a consultation. If the shaman can tell me things only I know, that’s it…where do I sign?

I don’t need a spiel explaining why they’re amazing. I don’t need pamphlets. I don’t need proselytizing. I need to see what you can do.

In the last decade, shamanism has undergone a revival in South Korea, particularly among younger generations, which are moving away from institutional religions.

This resurgence is evident in popular culture, as seen in the highly successful 2024 film Exhuma and numerous television series.

Traditionally a shaman becomes one through a process called shinbyeong, sometimes translated as “spirit sickness.” It manifests as being ill without explanation, having visions and a sense of being pulled toward the spirit world.

The illness disappears only when the person accepts their role and goes through an initiation ritual. The shaman doesn’t apply for the job or train for it. The body suddenly manifests abilities it didn’t previously have.

People who are satisfied with their current situation don’t visit shamans. “Every one of my clients is either at a crossroad in their life or, at least to some extent, desperate to get out of a difficult situation,” said shaman Kim in an interview.

And rather than dismissing the client’s desires, like some organized religions might, Korean shamanism encourages them, whether it be luck, money, or exam success.

Mudang: the Original Freelancer

Mudang don’t have a church, a central headquarters, or a steady salary. They are “hustling” for spirits, responsible for their own marketing, reputation, and results.

Historically, shamans were stigmatized by the state religions of different eras: Buddhism, Neo-Confucianism, and several forms of Christianity.

They had to work in hiding when they were persecuted and move with the times as the modern world changed rapidly.

The story of shamanism is one of adaptation. Their business shifts according to the needs of the nation, but the core remains the same: mudang are intuitive freelancers managing crisis and uncertainty.

Their clients are increasingly business owners and merchants. Not only can they afford an hours-long ritual, but they need to know that their business has the best chances for success.

The Shamanic Formula

The appearance of the practice in movies and television series (“The Wailing” of 2016, Netflix series “The Glory” of 2022) has helped mudang attract a younger crowd bringing issues previously considered taboo.

Shamans today are even consulted for matters relating to sexuality and gender identity, a topic not mentioned decades ago.

Why consult with a shaman? If data fails to offer answers, intuition is a good alternative. Who do you consult? Word of mouth. Reputation spreads through social media faster than it once did through the community and results matter more than “credentials.”

Do the rituals always work? No, but they offer emotional release to people whose businesses are failing, marriages are collapsing, child is sick, or whose career seems to be cursed.

Mudang operate in high emotional stakes environments. A gut (ritual) involves the senses through drumming that accelerates the heart rate, dancing and chanting in which also clients and observers participate; costume changes; and often ancestors speaking through the shaman’s voice.

Lessons From the Spirit Economy

Shamans don’t need diplomas, institutions, certifications or a corporate infrastructure.

They need reputation, results, and the intuition to understand what the clients require.

The reputation of mudang spreads through stories. A prediction comes true and suddenly the client is telling friends, family, coworkers, and neighbors. The narrative becomes bigger every time it’s retold.

A business card is okay. But a recommendation turned folk tale is priceless. Don’t sell your services, sell your credibility.

Let’s keep it real: I have NEVER gotten a job through LinkedIn. But I’ve translated two more than a dozen books through word of mouth from editor to editor.

One of the most powerful reputation signals is that a serious mudang will sometimes refuse a client if they believe they can’t help them. A refusal creates trust because they are protecting their reputation.

Your brand integrity is one of your most valuable assets. Turning down a client can generate more respect than what you would have earned by accepting a problematic project.

Mudang make decisions in situations where information is incomplete, outcomes are uncertain, and clients are emotional. So do you and I, and we use intuition, not only data.

People rarely change their minds through logic alone. Their emotions are involved, their gut feeling: “I’m not feeling this color combination,” “Something feels off,” “Let me sleep on it.”

Diplomas alone won’t lock in the project. It takes branding, intuition, and client management.

When institutions are too big to offer clients a unique experience, freelancers create alternative markets for expertise.

Shamanism is one of those markets.

Even in the most modern societies, people still seek guidance where logic stops and uncertainty begins.

Mudang survive because uncertainty never disappears.

“Revenge is a dish best served cold.”
The Godfather (1972)

“You will meet your enemy on a narrow bridge.”
(Destiny always brings old grudges face to face.) - Korean proverb

A colleague presents my project as if she created it. I am FURIOUS. I have so much resentment. Feelings of injustice in my body that are so big they don’t fit inside me and my chest hurts.

I book a zoom appointment with my therapist. I tell her I am HUNGERING for revenge.

She tells me anger only hurts me, resentment is poison. She advises I speak to my boss.

I KNOW this! These are things I know perfectly. But at the moment, I need to get rid of these feelings before they poison the rest of my life. It’s already ruined my day…no, my month!

What I need is an outlet. Someone who doesn’t judge me but rather helps me release these feelings, put them somewhere safe. If only I had a shaman.

Some wrongs don’t fade with time. They are etched so deeply into memory that the wound closes, but the scar remains.

Nobody saw your pain. Nobody said, “You are right to be angry. What they did was wrong.”

With nowhere to go, that anger doesn’t disappear. And so, our feelings of anger linger like a slow poison.

History hasn’t been kind to the Korean people. And we are not people who forget. Korean revenge is an energy that drives a person to keep moving forward, to succeed, and to find peace.

In Korea, revenge is not “I will hurt you.”
It’s “I will never let you forget.”

It’s not about punishment. It’s about refusing to be erased.

This essay explores how Korean culture understands anger that has nowhere to go, and why unresolved resentment can turn into something deeper.

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Listen, why don’t we just do a test right now? Wouldn’t a test PROVE my abilities?

What is this, the Joseon Kingdom?! You’re questioning my legitimacy as an interpreter and translator without even a test? Wow.

Yep, I took off my Tatemae1 face and went directly to honne2. In Korean terms: I lost face by losing my s**t.

When someone questions your legitimacy, it is not just about a certificate. It is about decades of invisible effort being treated as provisional.

If you’ve worked hard to for your reputation as a professional, a mother, an artist, or any other acquired skill that takes hundreds of hours of practice, you know what my reaction was about.

Even Korean Noblemen Had to Prove Something

In the year 958, the Goryeo Dynasty established the Gwageo civil service exam. The main topics covered by the exam were Confucianism, classical literature, and state administration. Those who passed the exam obtained immediate employment as government officials.

A family could not present itself as noble unless it had a member who had passed the exam and served in government within the last four generations. This is the origin of the Chinese and Korean obsession with their children’s education.

It wasn’t about passing the exam to get a job and make money. Passing the civil service exam was the purpose of their lives.

The test was held every three years. During the 500 years of the Joseon Kingdom, only about 15,000 passed the mungwa or the literary section of the gwageo. Even those who had been preparing for well over ten years could easily fail.

The Gwageo proved you were a moral person. It proved your social hierarchy. Your intellectual ability.

Pass the exam, and you were legitimate.
Fail, and you were invisible, until the next exam 3 years later.

According to historical documents, of 364 ministers of the Joseon Kingdom, 323 had passed the literary exam.

What did these men do aside from continue studying during those 3 years? They lived with their very embarrassed family as “gentlemen scholars.”

Did Gwageo actually promise stability?
Or was legitimacy always conditional?

Has anything changed?

Do We Have to Keep Proving Ourselves Forever?

Not a day goes by that LinkedIn doesn’t promote Translation, Leadership, and Ai certification courses. It also encourages me to update my résumé. Oh, there’s an expensive course on résumé writing, of course.

If I’m not getting more diplomas and certificates, am I losing worth? What happens after I pass the first AI course? How many updates until I’m “current”? How many certificates until I’m secure?

A coach DMs me about a personal branding course she’s teaching. For the kind of money she’s charging for her course, she’d better guarantee enlightenment, immortality, and algorithmic salvation.

We thought adulthood meant we were done proving ourselves.

Why legitimacy always feels unstable.

Legitimacy feels unstable because it is externally granted.

They keep moving the goalpost. You study a course to update your credentials and a couple of months later there’s a new course you “must” add to your résumé. Ego aside, economic insecurity is breathing down our necks and courses aren’t free.

Take the course.
Learn the AI tools.
Update your résumé.
But don’t let the marketplace convince you that you are starting from zero every time it refreshes.

The Gwageo was brutal, but it had a defined gate. Today there is no gate. There’s only continuous recalibration.
The Gwageo at least had an exam day. Today, the exam never ends.

It’s not about refusing to continue learning or adapting.
It’s about the feeling that legitimacy evaporates every quarter.

We were told that if we studied hard, built a reputation, worked long enough, there would come a day when we could exhale.

Midlife was supposed to feel like arrival. Instead, it feels like another entrance exam.

That’s why the certification ads sting. That’s why the AI updates feel existential.

It’s not the learning that exhausts us. It’s the sense that nothing we have already done counts.

You have already built competence.
You have already survived reinvention.
You have already passed exams no one graded.

Your accumulated skill does not reset because the market discovered a new acronym.

You are not an entry-level human.

I worked till my neck throbbed. I looked at the number of pages I still needed to translate and it just seemed like I was not moving forward. You only get paid for what you translate…so…anxiety city!

My chiropractor says I have to scale back the hours I sit at my computer. Well, I can’t do that. I have responsibilities, you know. I have to keep my world balanced.

The Geometry of the Universe

The painting behind the king’s throne in Gyeongbokgung Palace in Korea is called Ilwolobongdo, literally “The Sun, the Moon, and the Five Peaks.”

The Sun symbolizes the King (Yang) and the Moon symbolizes the Queen (Yin). The five peaks represent the Five Directional Mountains of Korea (North, South, East, West, and Center). They represent the King’s right to protect and rule over the entire territory.

The waterfalls symbolize the “flow” of life and nourishment from the mountains down to the people, reinforcing the King’s role as the provider of stability and prosperity.

The Human Who Made the Cosmos Complete

The Ilwolobongdo painting is viewed as incomplete until the King is seated in front of it. The King’s body is the Center and when he sits before the screen, he completes the geometry of the universe, aligning heaven and earth.

Without him, it was decorative.
With him, it symbolized order.

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Our loyalty is tested constantly. If we’re found wanting, then we don’t “belong.”

At work we’re asked to stay late to finish a presentation someone needs “by tonight.” Who would dare say no to a test of loyalty at the place where we make our living?

Some groups demand silence from their followers. Nothing to see here. If you saw something, keep your mouth shut.

What does your culture demand you sacrifice to be considered legitimate? To be accepted as a woman, as a man, as part of your nation, as a member of your work team, as a member of your community?

Who decides whether you’re ________ enough? (fill in the blank)

And who gets to belong without proving it at all?

Loyalty & Belonging

The Korean War ended in a truce not a peace treaty in 1953, so North and South Korea are technically still at war. The country’s strategic position, surrounded by China, Russia, and Japan also makes having a large, active military force vital for national security.

For these reasons, every Korean man between the ages 18-28 must abandon his studies, career, work, and family for about 2 years to complete their compulsory military service (age 30 if they’re elite athletes or classical musicians/k-pop artists who represent Korea in that manner).

This is a ritual of proving loyalty to the nation.

What would happen if your country could pause your life and demand proof of loyalty?

For Korean men, the test is visible.
For the rest of us, it’s quieter.

We prove loyalty through overwork. Through silence. Through shrinking.
Through explaining ourselves again and again.

Women soften their ambition or have to explain why they couldn’t bake 30 cupcakes for their kid’s class because of work.

Men hide vulnerability or skip health checks because they would look weak.

Immigrants who erase their accent and tell their kids not to speak their mother tongue in order to be accepted.

Some employees never log off because if they’re not “team players,” someone else will be.

Will we ever finally belong?

What Does It Mean to Be Korean?

Before 2010, young men who were ethnically mixed (one Korean parent-one parent of a different ethnicity), were not obligated to perform military service, since nation and ethnicity were tightly bound together.

However, a French-Kenyan person born in France, is French.

I understand why Koreans would equate race, ethnicity, and nation. After being colonized by the Japanese and invaded by several countries, being Korean meant being ethnically, full-blooded Korean.

The more strangers tried to erase the Korean identity, language, and culture, the more Korea dug in its heels to protect them.

Since 2010, the government expanded military service to all Korean nationals, regardless of their ethnicity. In 2015, a man born to a French father and a Korean mother, became a Korean soldier. In 2025, a Japanese-Korean renounced his Japanese nationality to serve in the Korean Army.

Since 2022, around 5,000 men from multicultural families, have served in the Korean military. These five thousand men belong to Korea enough to serve.
Only they know whether that ends the test.

Am I Enough? Do I Belong?

Am I Spanish enough? Nope. Not with this face. Not according to Spaniards and Mexicans, who all my life have asked if I’m Chinese or Japanese. Maybe those are the only two Asian ethnicities they know.

Am I Korean enough?

I can’t perform military service to prove I belong.

I rehearse answers before introducing myself.
I feel relief when someone says, “You belong.”

A Korean researcher into the patriots in exile who contributed to the Korean Independence Movement saw that we were in Seoul a couple of years ago and sent us a message, “No more going back to Mexico City. Deepen your roots in Seoul.” I asked him if he thought Seoul would welcome us as only half descendants and not full Korean.

He replied, “much as you love Seoul, Seoul will love you. Seoul welcomes you with open arms. We are people of the world and Seoul is a global city. Although you have lived abroad, you are the daughters of (sic) Korean. So you are full Korean from the beginning. That is our custom, culture and law. You and I are siblings living together in this era.”

Lovely thoughts, from a kind Korean man.

Must belonging to an ethnicity or nation have to be earned through pure blood and sacrifice?

What about the sacrifice of my ancestors and my family?

Some identities are inherited. I am half Korean.
Others must be proven. And I have to prove it.

At some point you have to decide whether you are auditioning for belonging,
or claiming it. I am Korean.

Are You In the Group or Are You Out?

Nations have standards for belonging.
So do families.
So do companies.
So do communities.

The question is whether belonging must be earned through sacrifice, whether it be military service, full ethnicity, a university diploma, hazing, race, loyalty to “the group”, or family expectations?

A recent survey showed that two-thirds of employees in South Korea receive work-related calls or text messages outside office hours over the past year. Another test of belonging: are you loyal to the team?

When belonging is conditional, you can’t relax.
You have to monitor yourself. Make sure you’re saying it right, doing it right.
You volunteer first.
You laugh before you’ve decided whether it’s funny.
You answer emails at midnight.
You stay quiet when something feels wrong.

If belonging always has to be proven, then it’s never secure. If it depends on sacrifice, who decides when you’ve given enough? Is it conditional acceptance?

Secure belonging is not earned through exhaustion.
It is recognized.

We are allowed to belong without auditioning, without a performance review.

You do not have to exhaust yourself to deserve a seat at the table.
You do not have to disappear to be legitimate.
You do not have to shrink to stay included.

Some identities are inherited.
Some are chosen.
None should require permanent probation.

At some point, you stop asking, “Am I enough?”
And you start saying, quietly and without apology,
“This is who I am.”
But because you are here.