America Redefined

Fort Worth, Texas

In the fall of 2023, I was visiting Seoul with my girlfriend.

We got in a cab one day and the driver began to chat us up, as cab drivers do. Though we are Korean, he quickly clocked that we were coming from somewhere else – most likely due to my broken Korean. He asked from where. We said America.

The driver was an older man and definitely past retirement age. He began telling us a story from his childhood.

He was a little boy in South Korea during its post-war period in the late 1950s. Much of the nation was impoverished, and his family was no different. He reflected on the difficulty and harshness of the situation, especially at such a young age – hunger, instability, and poverty were a part of everyday life.

The United States remained in the country following the end of the war to aid in reconstruction and nation-building – indeed, the US military still maintains a meaningful presence on the peninsula. He recalled how he would seek out American GIs around town, and how they would give the beggar boy food, snacks, and sweets, oftentimes from America. One day, he got American chocolate from a soldier and he said it was the sweetest and most delicious thing he had ever tasted.

As he grew older, he never forgot those days. He said he always remembered what the Americans had done for himself and his country, and he expressed a type of honest gratitude that, when you encounter it in someone, makes you realize how rarely you ever run into it in your everyday life. He raised his kids to respect America, and taught them that they should always be grateful for what their nation had received. He said he was deeply saddened and disappointed by growing anti-American sentiment among the youths of Korea today.

He said that a few days before us, he gave another tourist a ride. Seeing that the passenger was white, he asked the tourist if he was an American. The tourist said he was.

The driver told us that he always likes to keep his favorite Korean banana milk drink in his cupholder in case his sweet tooth aches during his shifts. But filled with gratitude towards this random stranger in the backseat of his car, and unable to to convey it due to the language barrier, he gave his drink to the American with the hopes that he could make one of them taste something as sweet as that chocolate bar he was given all those years ago. The American took the drink and probably didn’t think much of it. When the passenger left the cab, our driver said he broke down into tears.

I’ve been reflecting on what I think America is. I’d like to think that it is whatever it means to that old cab driver in Seoul.