‘You did your best…You did well’ adjusting to living in Korea for 11 years

The following article is the content of how Ms. Park Mi-hyang, a Chinese native, announced her story of adjusting to Korea for a married immigrant woman at the ‘Gunpo Family Homecoming Day’ held on November 5th. I introduce to you in an essay that clearly shows the life, happiness, and hope for the future of a married immigrant woman who had a hard time adjusting to her life in Korea.

China, Japan, Korea

My name is Mihyang Park and I am from Shenyang, China. I have been in Korea for 11 years and is entering the 10th year of marriage. I am a Korean-Chinese ethnic minority in China. From a young age, I attended Korean-Chinese elementary, middle, and high schools. The university graduated from a school in Shandong Province.

I majored in Japanese in college and went to study in Japan right after graduation. I majored in Japanese at a Japanese graduate school. After studying at university in Japan for 4 years, I worked several part-time jobs and paid for living expenses, tuition, and studying abroad by myself. It was hard, but it was really fun and it was the period where I grew the most.

Meeting with my husband

In 2011, I contacted my current husband by e-mail through a friend in China. In May 2011, I met my husband, who first came to Japan for sightseeing in Nagoya. We toured together like friends for 3 nights and 4 days. I fell in love at first sight because my husband was so comfortable back then. The day my husband went to Korea, I cried a lot because I was so sad.

After that, my husband and I started a long-distance relationship while traveling back and forth between Korea and Japan. Then I was really happy.

But there was no one to bless me and my husband. My husband's situation, such as education and wealth, was not very good. I felt comfortable and happy when my husband was with me no matter the conditions. So, after 6 months of dating, I gave up my life in Japan and came to Korea.

During the nine years of marriage, my husband graduated from university while working for a company, and his salary continued to rise. We now have a home and have a healthy and a beautiful son.

Life in Korea

I learned Korean in China from a young age, so I thought that life in Korea would not be difficult. But actually experiencing for myself, it was not at all. It took a long time and was difficult to adapt to because the language and culture were so different.

First of all, I felt the language barrier. I have been exposed to Korean since I was a child, but since I did not use Korean in my daily life, I was very poor at accent, language selection, and expression. Since I lived in Japan right away, when I tried to speak, Japanese or Chinese came out of my mouth first. Occasionally, Koreans asked me if I came from Japan or North Korea. I was shy every time I spoke Korean, but once I saw people, I tried to keep talking, and I studied Korean while watching the news. As a result, my Korean gradually improved.

Emptiness and Regret

In November of last year, I quit the company I had worked for 9 years and took a one-year leave of absence. After taking a year off, looking back on the past 11 years of my life, I was left with regret and emptiness. It was just that there was no dream for me. Now I'm trying to get to know who I am and I'm starting to look for things I really want to do. At this time last year, I didn't have any dreams. A year has passed and now I have 5 dreams. When I think of this new dream, I feel so happy and my heart races.

My 5 dreams

Due to Corona, I started hiking with my son from the end of last year. Since last year, I have climbed 27 times in total so far. It's really fun and happy to chat with my son while hiking while feeling the changes in the mountains in the four seasons of the year. Even when I become a grandmother, I promised my son that I would climb 100 times 1000 times. Hiking has become a shared hobby and dream for me and my son.

When I go hiking or outing, I like to take pictures. I take a lot of pictures, so pictures are fun, and I feel really proud when pictures of my life come out. I want to buy a used camera next year and try to become a professional photographer. In the future, I want to make an album of precious memories by taking a lot of daily life of my son and my family.

Also, this year, I was introduced to psychology by participating in a play therapy activity at a daycare center. When I got into psychology, I found out that I had low self-esteem and was slightly depressed. So I started getting treatment and counseling for depression.

Couples counseling is also available. Through marital counseling, I came to know my husband's painful heart, and I also gained muscle in my heart, making my current married life better. I would like to become a counseling therapist for my family by studying psychology in the future.

I also like to write. In the future, I would like to write about the mountain climbing with my son, the process of becoming a photographer, and the process of becoming a psychological counselor. And my dream is to make my own book before I turn 60.

Two years ago, I studied coding on my own. After some coding, I want to make a site for my son. On that site, I want to record my son's growth with beautiful photos and writing.

“You did your best. You did well"

I have lived in Korea quite fiercely for 11 years. From now on, I want to live the rest of my life with a bit of leisure for my own happiness. And finally to myself I want to say, “Mihyang, you worked really hard to adapt to life in Korea, you did your best. You did well”. For the rest of my life, I will try to live my small dreams one by one and live happily. 

Thank you