Looking out on to the corner of Derekh Namir and Einstein from here.
Photo dated sometime in the mid-90s when I began my life as a “צפונית”. After a year we moved out of Neve Avivim to Herzliya Pituach, so we don’t have much documentation of our life in north Tel Aviv. I like this rare find.
Me, in a postcard sent to Family Yoon from Dublin, Ireland.
Postmarked March 16, 2007.
Peshawar, Pakistan - March 7, 1985
My mother with my sister at the bazaar in Peshawar. In this photo, my sister is about a year old. I love how my they’re the focal point in this photo, together in yellow bound by the red straps.
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia - January 10, 1992
Again, poor iPhone quality.
With Mama and Sister Yoon. I’m in the middle.
Notice that my mother is wearing the abaya. Back then, foreign women could forgo the hijab and the niqab. From what I hear, things have gotten more strict since then. I don’t think you can wear skirts now that bear the ankles like my mother does in the photo.
Seoul, South Korea - March 14, 1993
Me with my first and favorite stuffed animal. If I remember correctly, my father bought me this stuffed animal off a street cart on his way from work to the hospital.
(I don’t have a scanner so instead took a picture of it with my iPhone. Hence the poor quality.)
Me, twenty-something years ago. Photo by Papa Yoon.
Providence?
A couple of days ago I started following a whole bunch of Korean journalists on Twitter, by random selection. Not long after I started following this one journalist, I received a direct message asking whether I had attended this high school - and I had. I vaguely recognized her name through mutual friends of ours. She was two years ahead so I wasn’t as close with the older students. We decided to find a time to meet up. Tonight was the night.
The first thing she said when she saw me was, “Oh, I now sort of remember seeing you in the school hallways!” I was taken by surprise because from our Twitter exchanges I had assumed she already knew who I was. Halfway through our gyozas and rice, she told me the story of how she came across, well, me.
A couple of months ago, she couldn’t remember this quote in a movie that she found memorable (a bit ironic, ey?). She Google searched and the first listing was the on this very blog. [Editor’s note: I asked her to tell me what the quote was and she couldn’t remember what the quote was or which movie it was in. Double irony.] She saw my name on the sidebar and thought, “I know this name”. She asked a friend of hers to see if the friend knew me, and the friend did. She forgot about this whole thing until I started following her on Twitter. Et voilà, we were at dinner.
Lee Kwan-hee, 8, a primary school student, takes part in a winter military camp in Ansan, about 25 miles southwest of Seoul, Jan. 6, 2010. Retired Korean marines corps conduct the camp, which about 300 school students from primary to university level attend to strengthen their mental and physical endurance. Also from South Korea this week: “witch-hunting” on the web. (Jo Yong-Hak/Reuters) (via GlobalPost)
