Chapter 1: Part 2/5

The rest of the car journey home was spent reminiscing on the good old days. I suppose it’s hard to avoid that when you’ve lost someone. The times when they were around look so much better, simply because it’s true. They were so much better. I was doing my best to make everything else as good as it could possibly be for our daughter, but we both knew it was never as good as it could and should have been.

Choi Chae-min, my beautiful wife and the love of my life, passed away on the 12th October 2024. Two years since her death is fast approaching. It feels like ten days, and it feels like decades, all at once. Chae-min was 37 years old when she passed. It was breast cancer that got her. We went down every route we could find. Nothing could stop it.

I haven’t coped well. It just happened so quickly. The speed at which it spread keeps me up at night. We were talking about moving back to her homeland when she got ill. Anna was going to start as a trainee somewhere, and pursue her dreams. We had basically fled when we originally left. She chose our family over everything else. She still wanted to come back when the time was right. The time was almost right, and it was taken from her at the last second.

I miss her more than words can express.

She was the idol of a generation and the first superstar of K-pop. She was the most popular member of the most popular group. She was a multitalented star of stage and screen. Everybody fancied her, but nobody fancied her as much as me. The government announced a day of mourning when she passed and flew flags at half-mast. She would have hated that, but it shows the impact she had.

It’s funny in a way. Some of the same people who shamed her for getting pregnant and pushed her out of the industry and country were the first to pen tributes and mourn her a generation later. Media personalities and politicians, you name it. I never forgot their names, nor did we acknowledge their heartfelt condolences.

Chae-min and I met in the last year of high school. I was arguably a little bit of a koreaboo back then. Memories of Murder, directed by Bong Joon Ho, was released in 2003. It was horrifying and captivating and it started an obsession with Korean cinema. Oldboy, directed by Park Chan-wook, was released later that year, which only added to the fire. I wanted to be a filmmaker back then. Life has taken me in a different direction, but those were my favourite films at the time and they convinced me that the best place to continue my education was in South Korea.

I planned to attend university in Seoul. This was before the time of the famous Hanlim Arts School, which didn’t open until 2009, which would have been my first choice if the timing was right. University was still a while away though, which made me look for alternative pathways. I found an exchange programme that would get me into the country for the final year of high school instead, and worked on convincing my parents. They wouldn’t have been able to stop me from moving abroad for university, but high school was different. I wasn’t 18 yet. Thankfully, they were convinced, with the help of my eventual host family.

I moved to Seoul in March 2004, at the age of 17. A year of high school would be enough to show me whether this was the right decision, and if it didn’t work out, a university course back home was waiting for me. The benefit was that because of the differing school calendars, I was able to skip the end of Year 12 in the UK to start my final year in Korea instead. I just had to fast track my way through some exams and give up my summer break. It was stressful, but worth it. My host family were incredible, and still close friends to this day.