Moving to Seoul, wistful for Seattle's people and bubble tea

SEOUL, South Korea — I am a sniveling mess these days.

There are these Korean shows, dramatic miniseries akin to American soap operas, with plots that sound ridiculous when described: Main characters get suddenly run over by huge trucks and die, evil mothers-in-law scheme cruel and deceitful things, the rich girl is switched with the poor girl at birth and grows up deprived of the privileges (and the guy) who should've been hers — that sort of thing.

But they're gripping!

I mean, I don't readily admit to watching and sobbing at these shows, but one harmless channel-surfing detour has led to many, many more. You know how it is. I was this way with "The Bachelor" and "American Idol." OK, "The OC" too.

I guess some things never change, no matter how far you go. I traveled 5,199 miles, to be exact.

It's been a little over a month since I left Seattle to move to Seoul, the city I half grew up in, and so far I've settled nicely into the ways I used to be.

There are the shows, of course.

There is the traffic, the gobs of people walking the streets, the flashy cityscape of lights at night, a little bit like the Tokyo you see in "Lost in Translation."

But the best part about returning home has been living with my family, which consists of my parents and my brother. In Korea, it's customary for women my age (late 20s) to live at home until they get married. Few leave the nest and get an apartment while single and working. It's just the way it is here, and a way of life I missed in the States.

How, you ask? How could I miss not being my own boss?

Call me crazy, but I love having to announce what time I'm going to be home, who I'm going to meet. It's nice to be taken care of, to not be allowed to eat tofu (or whatever magical, weight-loss food I have decided to eat exclusively) all week.

In Korea, parents have all the pull. In fact, older people in general are highly respected and get special treatment. They are spoken to in a formal version of Korean, one in which there are more proper versions of words like "age," verbs like "ate," and come to think of it, verbs in general. Older people are given things with both hands.

They are not to be confronted directly with the sight of a younger person drinking alcohol. If you are drinking with someone older, you turn to the side and take a quick swig.

Rules like these apply whether I am in the company of my dad or an older person behind the counter at a store. They make for a polite society, one where the smallest interactions are loaded with respect.

Then again, I've never met a race so good at shoving each other. Old ladies have practically thrown me out of their way without so much as a glance to acknowledge I was ever there. That's one thing I miss about Seattle, people who say "sorry" and "excuse me."

And then there are the city's quirks.

The fruit here is freakishly good. The peaches taste artificially sweetened (but they're not) and drip of so much watery wonderfulness that finishing an entire one is like drinking a glass of juice. The pears taste more like a pear sorbet I once had in France than a naturally grown fruit. The grapes might as well be candies with skin.

There's the faceless-criminal syndrome, as I call it. On the evening news, you almost never see people's faces as they're being hauled off to jail in handcuffs. They've either got their jackets over their heads as they're walking, led by an officer, or they're hunched over on a table with jackets over their faces. Shame is pretty big here.

And then there's the scary street scoreboard, a concept I've always been fascinated with. Every now and then, you'll see on the street an electronic billboard that flashes two new numbers daily: that day's traffic-related injuries and traffic-related deaths. It's a morbid scoreboard, but an important one considering so many people here spend so much time in cars.

Speaking of cars, I miss driving over the I-90 bridge from Seattle to Bellevue. I used to cross it just for fun, which would lead to stopping by Bellevue Square just for fun, and then the purchase of something totally unnecessary, which is always fun. I miss Bellevue Square, as Nordstrom and designer jeans are not accessible here.

I also miss the bubble tea in Seattle's International District (it's better there, in my opinion, than here), my eyebrow groomer, my hair stylist, the garlic-crusted "Sexy Fries" at the W Hotel, a bunch of other small-ish things.

When it comes to the big stuff, of course I miss the people.

But the weird thing is, being here doesn't feel very far.

Maybe it's the technology, the fact that the Korean shows here rival American soaps in dramatic storylines, or how the differences between countries seem to lie in the little things.

For me, it barely feels like 5,199 miles between here and there.

Young Chang is a former Seattle Times staff writer who recently moved back to Korea: ychang25@yahoo.com