Me Gook

Book excerpt: Beginning in 1994, Brian Hartenstein dropped out of graduate school and accepted an English teaching position in the rural South Korean city of ChonJu, seeking adventure and meaning. Ten years later in 2004, after six years living and teaching abroad and experiencing every culture shock imaginable, Korea suddenly came to him in the form of his in laws surprisingly showing up on his doorstep with the birth of his first child and never leaving. Me Gook explores the dark and humorous side of multi culturalism, what it means to be an American from a foreign and expatriate perspective, and how our destinies trap and limit us but also set us free.