[Perspective]
Forging a future from a trip to Korea

Heather Bayless, wearing one of her rings. By Park Kwang-choon

Apart from the typical “Are you American?” question that regularly irks Canadian expats across the Korean Peninsula, one of the most common queries of English-speaking foreigners has to be, “Why did you come to Korea?”

It’s not always an easy question to answer. More than a few people have likely asked it of themselves, after running into one of the many social quirks here that keep the expat blogs buzzing.

But there is a common thread running through most “Why I Came to Korea” stories - the opening of a window of opportunity, and a leap through it.

The window that Heather Bayless, an American metalwork artist, hopped through was in the shape of a field study at Kookmin University with her metalsmithing professor and a group of other students in 2003.

Bayless ended up coming back, marrying a Korean man, learning the language and becoming one of the first Americans to earn a master’s in metalwork and jewelry from a Korean university.

Next Monday, she’ll be opening her first solo exhibition, “Offspring,” at Gallery Dam in Anguk-dong. It runs until New Year’s Eve.

Like in Bayless’ case, after that initial leap, the story starts to take on a life of its own. You may not know why you came here in the first place, but then things happen - you get some new opportunity, you get married - that make you stay.

The love aspect may have been a factor for Bayless a little earlier than she lets on. She met her husband when he was in the States as a metalworking grad student; he was the one who organized her field trip. When I asked her if she already had a crush on him before she crossed the Pacific, she giggled and said shyly, “Probably.”

But the ambiguity of a stint in Korea comes to an end along with the stay itself. Among those headed back home, few are uncertain about why they’re leaving.

Bayless and her husband are scheduled to move back to the U.S. in the spring.

“Part of that is because the atmosphere here in the metalwork world is very difficult. In the U.S., there’s a much better market,” she said.

The other part you may already be guessing at.

“Being a foreigner here is difficult,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to have children here. If we put them in a regular school, there would probably be issues with them being biracial.”

“As a foreigner here, I don’t feel like I will ever be able to find my niche in society here,” she said.

You can check out Bayless’s work at www.heatherbayless.com.

By Richard Scott-Ashe, Deputy Editor [richard@joongang.co.kr]