JiHa's Journey: Broncen Age Freedom in Korea

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I first met the boy when I was only ten. He was a few years older than me, and he was sitting on the edge of the playground, staring at his shoes with an agitated expression on his face. He didn't seem to notice me when I walked up to him; and so I stopped right in front of him, and tried to catch his eye.

I didn't know what else to say, so I said the first thing that came to mind: "You look sad," I told him.

He looked up, startled ("Oh," he said, "Uh... Yeah..."), then he looked away again, hiding behind a curtain of bangs.

"How old are you?" he asked, after a moment's hesitation. His voice was quiet and soft, barely audible over the excited shrieks of the other children playing on the school grounds.

"Ten," I told him.

And then it occurred to me that I should introduce myself: "Ji-ha."

"I'm Kyeong-soo." (I later found out from my teacher that Kyeong-soo's family name was Choi.) It seemed like he wanted to say more than that; but instead he just stared down at his shoes again.

"What's wrong?" I asked him. It seemed like such a stupid question; but it just popped into my head, out of nowhere. Maybe it was because I'd never seen anyone like Kyeong-soo before; maybe it was because he seemed so lonely and miserable that it hurt my heart just looking at him; or maybe it was because I had always been told not to talk to strangers. But by that time, it was already too late for me to turn back—I had already started talking to Kyeong-soo, and now there was no choice but to keep going until someone told me to stop. I sat down next to him on the bench and watched the children playing on the playground while he stared at his shoes. After a while, it occurred to me that maybe Kyeong-soo did not want me around; but by then it was too late for me to leave as well. So we just sat there together until one of my teachers came up to us and told me that it was time for me to go home for dinner.