About The Bobster

I’m American, but I live in S Korea. I like it in Asia, so I think I’ll stay here.

I haven’t been back in the US since my mother died, and that was in the fall of ’03. This fall, on my birthday, I’ll observe my first decade as a resident of Seoul. I’m an English teacher here. I don’t work for any particular school these days. I’m doing most of my teaching privately now, and it feels wonderful not to have a boss.

I grew up in the wine country of Northern California, lived in San Francisco for over 5 years, parts of Nevada a bit, and a very short time ever so long ago in New Orleans. I may go back and visit, buy I’ll just be a tourist. I’d like to see if any of my favorite coffee shops in San Francisco survive, whether the Yosemite Valley still seems as close to paradise as it did when I was in high school, I want to drive and big bad Detroit muscle car drive a car through The Great American Desert one more time.

It was the morning of my honeymoon, over 5 years after my arrival, looking out the picture window from the 19th floor of the Millennium Hilton with Namsan Tower a short walk away, and snow was falling on this big, dirty, noisy and confusing Asian city, and even though I’ll always be a California boy and never really belong here, nevertheless I clearly recalling thinking, “This is my home.” And, how remarkable that felt.

It is remarkable, of course. I’m not Korean, and I know only a smattering of the language. I’m not a citizen, and I’m pretty sure I never will be. Still, it’s a fact that we decide – or discover – for ourselves just where our home is. This is mine.

With any luck, it will only occasionally be about me. My life is boring, and that the way I like it. You probably don’t want to know exactly how boring.

Anyway, I’m the Bobster. Glad to meet you. Let’s have a cup of coffee sometime.