Busan was a cool little window into my family's history. I've always wanted to visit, because it's where most of my family first experienced life outside of China, either having immigrated there as my grandparents did or being born there as many relatives of my parents' generation were.
I wanted to see my parents' school, walk the same streets where they walked, ran and played. I wanted to visit their neighborhood and imagine my grandparents' restaurant (mom's side), before it was destroyed by local thugs because my grandfather stood his ground and was never willing to give them money (after that happened, my grandparents moved the family to Seoul, where they established a new successful restaurant, and the kids attended the school I mentioned in my last post).
Being in Busan gave me a deeper understanding of what my grandparents endured. Walking the streets of Chinatown, there really wasn't much going on. It seemed a lot more like a community than your typical Chinatown, a lot less touristy for sure. People there didn't have glamorous lives and worked very hard to make a living. It occurred to me that day that my grandparents were not unlike those people. They weren't wealthy, and didn't have political connections. So to think, for them to move the family from Busan to Seoul, then to California, USA, is truly no small feat.
As I get older, I'm realizing more and more how difficult that really was, and how lucky I really am.
Being in Busan also allowed us to sample some delicious food (like the area in China where my family is from, Busan is a coastal city with access to fantastic seafood, so I wouldn't be surprised if its food culture strongly influenced my grandparents' decision to immigrate there). We sampled some great street seafood, and had unforgettable BBQ pork and beef dinners.
