Hangeul’s Gentle Spark

Time slips away quickly. Over a decade ago, I sat with my mom in a doctor’s office, her Parkinson’s diagnosis settling over us like a heavy fog. I can still feel that moment, the way it quietly shifted our future. The doctor spoke of treatments, then offered an unexpected suggestion: learning a language with a writing system different from the ones I already knew might be a good way to keep my mind active. I already spoke Portuguese, Spanish, and English, yet his words stayed with me.

Years passed. Life moved on.

Then COVID arrived.

Like many of us, I found myself rethinking what truly mattered, what grounded me, and what could sustain me in the long term. That was when I decided to take the doctor’s advice seriously. At 55, if not now, when?

My work with a refugee settlement agency in Atlantic Canada surrounds me daily with the music of many languages. French has always been nearby, familiar, almost like a cousin to my own. Mandarin, with its thousands of characters, felt vast and distant, like a language carved from mountains. Japanese intrigued me with its three writing systems, each one delicate and deliberate. Arabic drew me in with its elegant right-to-left script and quiet discipline, a language that feels like calligraphy in motion.

But it was Korean dramas that reached me most deeply. In moments when the world felt uncertain, their stories offered a kind of stillness, a gentle place to land. Mr. Sunshine, one of the dramas I hold closest, has a scene where Lee Byung-hun’s character, someone who grew up outside Korea and learns the language, whispers a hesitant phrase that hangs in the air like a fragile thread. I couldn’t have related more.

That was when I discovered Hangeul, twenty-four basic letters, beautifully simple yet intricate. Even the word for “spark,” 불꽃, seemed to me to carry something of its meaning in its shape, its sounds moving between curves and lines like flame.

Learning Korean feels like tracing a new map in my mind. It is challenging. My thoughts twist as I match sounds to Hangeul’s graceful shapes, then back to familiar Roman letters. I stumble through words, not fluent enough to converse, but enough to feel a spark. This is more than studying. It feels like a quiet act of defiance, a way to keep my mind alive. Korean stories lift my spirit, and I wonder if this journey strengthens me, for my mother and for myself. I hope it does.

감사합니다! | Gamsahabnida! | Thank you!

Image courtesy of Unsplash

Originally Published on: May 17, 2024