Passage V

Two Bus Rides

In 1966, at the age of thirty, I did my first cross-country bus outing, from Los Angeles to New York City. Only hours before starting that journey when I had first set foot on United States soil, having just arrived from my homeland, Korea. I was traveling to join my husband, whom had arrived two years earlier to pursue graduate studies. (64)

Possessing fifty U.S. dollars and a vocabulary of only a few dozen English words, I set off on my three-day bus trip. I was almost too nervous to eat or sleep throughout the whole trip. (65) My anxieties were compounded by uncertainties about the future. What would America be like? Would I be accepted here? Could I raise a family here?Thirty-two years later, in 1998, I took a similar three-day bus ride, but this time across Korea. Starting at the southern port city of Pusan and after making many stops, I arrived in the capital city, Seoul. Besides, I experienced some of the same feelings of foreignness and anxiety that had marked my first bus ride in the United States. (70) My native land had changed dramatically during my three-decade absence: small cities had burgeoned into huge metropolises, and people had adopted the hurried pace of modern living. Traffic jams, cell phones, and American fast-food restaurants were common. The Korea, I had known, existed now only in my imagination.My two bus rides have made me realize that one’s sense of belonging to a place, which comes through time and personal investment in that place. Because I had been away from Korea for so long, my ties to the culture and even to old friends had loosened. In the past thirty years I had worked, raised a family, formed community bonds, and made new memories in my adopted country. (74) The young woman, who had embarked on that long bus ride, those many years ago has finally made the United States her home.