It Will Always Be Seoul Tower
For nearly thirty-six years, whenever I see Seoul Tower, I am reminded of my first night in Korea. Not long after I was hired to teach English in Korea, I contacted the Korean National Tourism Office for information about the country. This was 1990. There was no looking up my future neighborhood online, no YouTube video to show me how to buy a subway ticket or order lunch. Instead, a packet of glossy brochures arrived in the mail, still full of the excitement of the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Back home, I studied them for glimpses of the place where I would soon be living. One of the images that stayed with me was Seoul Tower, perched on Namsan above the city. Apparently, I studied those brochures rather closely. About two weeks before leaving, I had a vivid dream of a city divided by a river, with a tower standing on a hill. I did not know where I was in the dream, only that I was supposed to go there. Perhaps my mind was simply sorting through everything I had been reading and wonderi...
