The Life of a Kpop Idol

Birthday (Hana)

I'm Hana.

You can say I am your average 16 year old teenage girl, but at the same time I'm not.

I was born in Toronto, Canada along side my older brother, Michael, and my younger brother, Ethan. My father is Korean coming from South Korea and my mother is Chinese from Hong Kong. They had met after they had moved to Canada with their families. Until four years ago, my life in Canada was the same as any other 10 year old kid. I attended school, hung out with friends and just simply enjoyed life like any other preteen.

It wasn't until my dad got a job offer did my life change. His promotion required him to be relocated from Canada to South Korea which required us to move away from the home we knew to someplace halfway across the world. We said goodbye to our friends and were introduced to a different country, people, language, and culture. 

I was a pretty good student, mostly getting A's with an occasional B here or there. But studying languages is of a different level entirely. I was mostly fluent in English and Cantonese while still trying to grasp the Korean language. (That and a bit of French since it's mandatory to learn it in Canada.) But I only had a few months to really get my things together and learn Korean before officially moving there.

When we finally arrived in Korea we moved into our new house in Seoul. Everything in Korea was different about Canada. When my siblings and I first started attending school we struggled with learning the language and keeping up with the curriculum. Our grades dropped at first, but that didn't stop us from learning the best we could. 

My older brother of 2 years, Mike, found his spot amoung a bunch of friends and immediately fit in with his new buddies. My younger brother of 3 years, Ethan, was able to pick up a few friends despite a struggle for a year where he couldn't speak Korean at all. For me, I could only find two close friends that truly knew me and they were Emily and Adam. 

Emily was a transfer student from America who had an American father and a Korean mother. While Adam transferred from England from an English mother and a Korean father. We had transferred to the same school as each other and became friends almost immediately. Many people had picked on us calling us "halfers" and "hybrids" but we felt proud to be of two worlds coming from different cultures and peoples.

My life for the next two years consisted of mostly learning the Korean language and fitting in. Never in my life would I have thought that everything would change after I turned 14.

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"Happy Birthday Hana!"

I half shouted half squeaked as I entered the house late at night. It was in November 22, 2014 and I had just finished my shift at a local clothing store. The once dark and quiet house was replaced with bright lights, coloured streamers, confetti, and smiling faces. And of course, cake.

I had jumped out of fright and nearly stumbled into the wall before catching myself and smiled.

"You guys remembered?" I asked.