I’m an ordinary Korean man in my forties, raising a family and living in Korea today.
I was born in the 1980s, and over the course of my life, I’ve watched almost everything around me change in one way or another.
The Korea I was born into was going through a remarkable period of change.
Looking back now, it feels as though things were constantly appearing, disappearing, and transforming, while people simply learned to adapt and keep moving forward.
As a child, though, none of this felt particularly difficult or extraordinary.
It was simply the world I knew.
It was everyday life.
But now that I’m in my forties, looking back gives me a strange feeling.
So many things that once seemed completely ordinary have disappeared.
Sometimes, when I come across an object or an old photograph from my childhood, it almost feels like discovering an artifact from another age.
Even the way children play has changed.
When I watch kids today, I realize that many of the games my friends and I played as children have almost completely disappeared.
But I don’t want this blog to be only about saying, “This is how things used to be.”
I want to talk about the Korea I remember alongside the Korea that exists today.
What we wore.
What we ate.
What we played with.
What school was like, how families lived, what we watched on television, and what kinds of stories filled the news.
And I want to explore how all of those things have changed.
Some of you may recognize parts of these stories from your own childhood, even if you grew up thousands of miles away.
Others may read them and think, “So that’s what life in Korea was like.”
Some of our experiences may be surprisingly similar.
Others may be completely different.
I think both are worth talking about.
My hope is that Born2BeKorean can become a place where we share those memories, compare the Korea of the past with the Korea of today, and perhaps discover something new about each other along the way.