Why I’m choosing to post my personal memoir in this space:
Committing my reflections to a public forum, where they may be read by many,
encourages a greater degree of objectivity in my writing. Were I to confine these
thoughts solely to a private journal, I would be far more susceptible to drifting into
purely subjective emotion. Moreover, the possibility that these entries may be viewed
by unfamiliar readers gives me confidence that, in time, sharing them with my family will
feel natural and unencumbered.
As for writing in English, it is not out of any desire to impress. Rather, it is because
my son, who doesn’t read Korean well, will need to be able to understand these accounts someday.
I therefore ask for the readers’ understanding.
(There is an additional consideration: the material is deeply personal, and
expressing it in Korean feels, in an unexpected way, uncomfortably intimate.)