Last February, I celebrated my birthday outside my home country for the first time. I listened to the birthday song in seven different versions of the language from my friends, put a spoon in ice cream instead of candles on a cake, and made wishes on a flight cloud. Everything was perfect even though I didn’t do something special.

To be honest, I don’t miss Korea except for my family, my friends, and my cat (Danzi). Not yet. “Because I Don’t Like Korea,” by Kang-Myoung Chang, is the story of a Korean woman in her 20s. The following sentences are what I deeply sympathized with.

“Why I think I can’t live here… is that I’m really not a competitive human in Korea. Like some kind of animal that has to be extinct. I get cold easily, I can’t risk my life, and I don’t have anything I inherited. But I’m picky. Commuting distance is important at work and hopes there are lots of cultural facilities around where I live. Also, I hope what I do is realize my ego. You know, I’m caring about things like that.”

Even though those are not such luxurious conditions, Korean society makes us feel guilty to want all of these things. In 2017, the Center for Happiness Studies at Seoul National University and Kakao Group tried to analyze Koreans’ happiness depending on various factors such as age, gender, region, season, and time.

“About H: Korea Happiness Report 2019,” which is the result of the research, showed that Korean women in their 20s and 30s recorded the lowest happiness. Women’s happiness is measured much higher when they live abroad. On the other hand, in the case of men, the happiness of overseas residents was found to be the lowest.

Professor In-Cheol Choi explained, “Maybe it is because if Korean men move abroad, the benefits enjoyed in Korea disappear in other cultures.”

Social support was also high for women living abroad. Eun-Soo Choi, a psychology professor at Korea University, said, “The fact that women’s happiness index is particularly low shows the anxiety, dissatisfaction, and difficulties they feel,” adding, “In particular, young women feel a lot of pressure because collectivist hierarchies and patriarchal cultures remain in Korea.”

Moreover, UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (UN-SDSN) released the “World Happiness Report” in March. Among 137 countries, Korea ranked 57th, the U.S. ranked 15th, and Finland ranked first for six consecutive years. Hae-Sik Kim, Ph.D. at the National Institute of Science and Technology, Finland, said that it is because of the following reasons. First, the Finnish thinks everyone is ordinary and equal. Second, they live their own lives instead of competitive life. Third, Finland is a country of social welfare.

To summarize, the most important part is “to focus on me.” This relieved me of the heavy burden I had in Korea. After I came to the U.S., because there is no place that I know, nobody I know, nothing to think about seriously, and just concentrate on each day, I learned about myself and how to respect myself. Furthermore, if this is possible, I can make healthy relationships with others.

The most impressive one on my birthday was from the Uber driver. That evening, I was heading to my friend’s house and told him that today is my birthday. I was able to choose a song with a tablet installed behind the passenger seat. With my favorite song and spectacular sunset through the window, it was like being in a movie. After we arrived at the destination, he asked me to wait for a moment and began to do something. A few minutes later, he gave me a heart made of a two-dollar bill. My day was completed by the kindness of a stranger.

Pico Iyer, essayist, and novelist gave a lecture at the TED talk; “Where is home?” In this lecture, he answered four different ways to the question, “Where do you come from?” First, his blood and ancestry came from India. Second, he was raised and educated in England. Third, he pays taxes for the U.S. Last, the place that goes deepest inside him and where he tries to spend most of his time is Japan. Like this, ‘Home’ is not the place that results in one answer.

“Home has really less to do with a piece of soil, than, you could say, with a piece of soul. If somebody suddenly asks me, “Where is your home?” I think about my sweetheart or my closest friends or the songs that travel with me wherever I happen to be. (…) Where you come from now is much less important than where you’re going. More and more of us are rooted in the future or the present tense as much in the past. And home, we know, is not just the place where you happen to be born. It’s the place where you become yourself.”

By the same standards as he said, where my blood starts and where I was raised is in Korea, but where I feel freer and happier is in the U.S. Home is the place where my mind is relaxed and comfortable. In my case, it is based on relationships. Yes, I’m talking about “to focus on me” and “relationships with others” at the same time, which is a contradiction. However, these are not distant topics.

Things around me affect me in some way. I made a new network here, and this is my first time being a member of the ‘salad bowl society.’ Everyone has lived in different environments with different experiences, and it means that I can meet countless divergent worlds. Nothing special is needed. Cooking food from each other’s country, sharing opinions after watching movies, and even while casual conversations, there are some astonishing moments. Therefore, that’s why I also want to be a person who has a good influence.

Here is what my father told me: If you want to change your situation, you should change “place” and “relationship” around you. The only thing you can’t change is “time,” which is an area of god. It means except for the time that we can’t change, others are variable. By living in the U.S., the place and relationships around me have been totally changed. Now, I can afford to give a heart as the Uber driver did to me. I believe any other part of me I don’t know would have gradually changed.

Happy birthday to my dear EunChong!

Juri Kim is an international intern from Korea.