I glanced at my two sleeping sisters in the living room, and then I glanced at my watch. 6:15 AM. It was Friday, the national holiday of Hangul Day, and my ETA friends and I were meeting in Jinju for the famous Lantern Festival. It was going to be the first time in weeks that I had seen another native English speaker, let alone another American. It was also going to be my first weekend away from my host family, a thought which horrified Ye Bin.
“Where you stay?” she had asked me all week. “How many friends? You go Jinju alone?”
I scrolled down the list of contacts on my phone and pressed “call.” A woman’s voice answered, “Yoboseyo!” and I gave the apartment address. If the taxi pulls up in front of the gate in the next five minutes, I thought, I will have made my first successful Korean phone call.
I hung up the phone and saw Host Mom poke her head out of her bedroom.
“Odi-e kayo?” Where are you going?
“Jinju.” I held up my phone. “Taxi.”
She nodded, remembering, and waved goodbye. I headed out the door and saw the black taxi pulling up in front of our building. Success!
Janine Perri 