Origin

There was a particular summer I became a writer.

I was on a plane to Jeju Island for a school trip. I had wanted to sit by the window, but my seat was in the middle aisle — the worst one in the 3-4-3 configuration. But no matter: suddenly, an ocean of words came rushing out of me. Sentences flowed as if someone had turned on a faucet.

The only paper I had was the back of my boarding pass, clipped to my school name tag. So I grabbed it, flipped it over, and began to write. I don’t remember what I wrote about — only that I filled the long strip of thin paper with fine, careful letters and felt proud of the result. I felt refreshed, authentic, and strong.

Several more summers went by in the same fashion: in the middle of nowhere, words would pour out of my soul. I wrote them down, then read them again and again. Those small writings became the seeds of a national speech contest, a college application, and later, a portion of my published writing.

Sometimes, when I felt sad, I felt the words rising inside me. Like a child asking for attention, they pressed against my throat until I wrote them down. Back then, I didn’t know it was Han speaking. I only knew it felt like home. A home I craved, and wanted to run away from.