What Does Home Mean to You?

The side of the fridge is covered with magnets and souvenirs from the various places that our family visited. The Disneyland logo is from the family trip to California back in 2003, when I was 10 years old. Pictures of Grand Canyons, magnet of Universal Studio and San Francisco, and the logo of Cal (UC Berkley) are also from the same trip to the West coast. There are magnets from the different trip to the East coast taken back in 2006; I was 13 years old then. Images of New York, Boston, Niagara Falls, and the wooden British solidier from the Fort Henry of Kingston. 

Then there are magnets from the family trips taken while staying in Canada: Le Biodôme de Montréal, Le Parc Omega (What a fantastic drive), Percé Rock in Gaspé Peninsula, Shedd Aquarium of Chicago (It's a fantastic city), Luray Caverns of Virgina, and MoMA in New York.

Some of the recent ones are the ones from the trip to the Vancouver, Victoria, and the Rockies- with me and my mom. Those magnets such as Columbia Ice field and Moraine lake weren't cheap purchase but they remind me of the shared memory of my mom and I. Even more recent ones are from my dad's business trip to Barcelona of Spain. While he participated in the Mobile World Congress for weeks (you're awesome, dad!), he visited places around the city and brought home the magnets of Cathedrals that I cannot name. Along with the magnets and souvenirs, there are also postcards that I sent home while traveling alone in the past year.

The definition of home is deeply connected with the presence of family, rather than its geographical location. I no longer think that this home in Seoul, the very same place that I lived through out my childhood, is a permanent 'home'. In fact, I already experienced that when my family lived in Ottawa for a short period of time; Seoul isn't what makes me feel like I'm home- my family is. For me, home is where the stories of family come together and the collective memory coexists- just like this picture of the side of fridges, filled with magnets that contains memories from family trip and individual journey.