by Cat on September 30, 2008
The blog has been pretty quiet over the past couple weeks as we are currently negotiating some real-world transitions. Although nothing is set in stone, it does appear that we will be ending our sojourn in Korea at the end of the year.
We’re not precisely sure what we’ll be doing next, but it does look pretty certain that it won’t be here. One option is to return to the U.S. and another is for David to take a short assignment for his company in Hong Kong.
I am having surprisingly mixed emotions about leaving Seoul. On one hand, I am excited about a new adventure or the chance to move closer to friends and family and all the comforts of home. On the other hand, I know there are many things here that I will miss very much.
David and I began our married life together here and this is where our daughter was born. So many of our ‘firsts’ together were here, and I am feeling a little sentimental at the idea of possibly never seeing all of these places again.
Over the next couple of months, we’ll be trying to visit some places in Korea that we’ve been meaning to see, and I’ll probably post a lot of reflections about our life here and how it has changed me, and us. But I wanted to do this quick short note to let people know what’s going on.
A few weeks ago, a several popular Korean blogs started a multi-post, multi-site discussion about why expat bloggers complain about Korea.
I’ll leave that question to the excellent discussion that ensued on other blogs, but wanted to share my initial reaction—which is that there are actually *lots* of expat bloggers who don’t complain about Korea. You just never seem to hear about them.
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As far as I can tell this has not been reported in the media, but a lot of expat blgogers have been writing about Stephen Michael White, the 14-year-old son of an expat English teacher who died under mysterious circumstances at a jjimjilbang in Daegu.
On Saturday evening, May 10th, we went to the Royal Hawaii Sauna to relax after a long day and the unthinkable happened. While Michael was in the men’s side of the spa, he was drowned in a shallow cold pool.
Michael was nearly 6 ft tall and a strong swimmer. He was versed in how to be safe with regards to paying attention to his heart and breathing in sauna/hot tubs. He was in excellent health and had no pre-consisting conditions, or conditions discovered in the autopsy that would have caused him to drown on his own.
His mother and I were not notified that there was an emergency with Michael until sometime after an ambulance had arrived. Later in the week we were informed that the ambulance was apparently called at 11:02 pm, but we were not notified until 11:45 pm. Both of us have first responder training and might have been able to save his life.
His mother is hoping that more public attention will put pressure on the Daegu police to investigate what happened. According to his mother, they at first declined to interview anyone from the sauna about what they might have seen or heard, though they know say that they will try to find out what happened.
There are two vigils planned: one today at the American Embassy in Seoul and one outside the sauna where he died in Daegu.
More information can be found at this Facebook site. If you can, please go and give Stephanie White your support. She needs and deserves to know as much as possible about how her son died.
Seoul Ixpat is a new online classifieds and community portal for expatriates living in Seoul. Online ads can be posted for free and stay up for 12 weeks, unless withdrawn earlier.
It’s a pretty, clean, user-friendly site. If you have something you need to buy or sell, or are looking for a job or apartment, head on over to check it out.
