It was the kind of humid Seoul afternoon that made the air feel thick as honey. Cho Hye Eun, a restoration specialist at the National Museum of Korea, preferred the silent company of centuries-old artifacts to the chatter of the outside world. Her fingers, steady as a surgeon’s, were brushing dust off a cracked celadon jar from the Goryeo dynasty when her phone buzzed.
By all accounts, Cho Hye Eun’s upbringing was humble. Unlike the children of chaebol families or high-ranking officials, she attended public schools and was raised with a strict emphasis on empathy, justice, and self-reliance. In various interviews (mostly with family acquaintances, as she rarely speaks to the press), her parents have described her as a "quiet soul" who preferred drawing and reading to socializing. cho hye eun
It’s currently 3:42 AM, and I’m just staring at the ceiling of my hotel room... why does the night always make you think too much? 🥲 It was the kind of humid Seoul afternoon
"A vowel without a consonant cannot make a sound," she explains. "But it can make a feeling. It is the shape of a sigh, the line of a gasp." By all accounts, Cho Hye Eun’s upbringing was humble
I think lately I’ve been putting so much pressure on myself to show you a "better" version of me. A cooler version. A prettier version. But today, standing there, sweating (lol, sorry if that’s TMI but it was HOT up there! 🔥), singing until my throat was scratchy... I realized that the version of me you love is the one that is just real. The one who makes mistakes, the one who laughs at her own jokes, the one who sometimes texts the group chat at 4 AM asking if anyone else is craving tteokbokki. 🍡