YJ
Interviewing people you already know can be surreal and a little bit awkward. As a journalist, you feel oddly formal; you ask questions you already know half the answers to and ask them in a way you never would in any other given situation. Having said that, when I met Sophie and YJ at Whitebark on a clear and crisp January afternoon for coffee and cake, I was confident these tensions wouldn't get in the way of an interview I was so eagerly anticipating.
I met YJ through Sophie, hence why she came along and because she wanted to join in on our chat about travel and YJ's upcoming adventures. Sophie and YJ work together at one the of the hotel restaurants here in Banff and I've met YJ a fair few times with some of their other friends from the hotel.
It was Sophie who suggested to me that YJ would be a good interviewee as though she was born and raised in Korea, she's spent the last few years living abroad. This immediately piqued my interest and I was so happy that she graciously agreed to give up her time to talk me. YJ has been in Banff for the last eight months and is coming to the end of her visa and so I was fascinated to see how her perspective differed to Sophie's and mine own, given that we had only been in town half as long.
I began by asking YJ what it was that made her want to come to Canada, "It was my gut feeling actually; I was in Toronto before, like five years ago, I did an exchange programme there. I really loved it, like staying in Canada by myself, away from my family for a long time. I could support myself and I think that was a really good time for me in my life so far. So when I was leaving, I was like 'I have to come back here, I'll make sure of it that I am coming back here.'" Living in Toronto, it was a chance for YJ to be totally independent, not like when she went to university at home, "I've also lived away from my family, but it was like an hour and a half away. Korea is small, the [farthest you can go] will be five hours away from your home...Staying in Canada was a time for me to be myself."
Toronto is quite a way from Banff, I wondered how YJ found herself here in this small mountain town when she returned to Canada, "So when I was in Toronto, I met some Korean friends doing working holiday visas like we do here, but she didn't really like Toronto because it was similar to Korea. So she finally ended up moving to Banff and she sent me pictures of Banff and Lake Louise, and I'm like 'what the hell? this place is like an imaginary place' so since then I've always wanted to come here. Really totally different from Korea where I was.
Having no real idea what ordinary life was like in Korea, other than the image we are presented with on the news and online, I asked YJ for her perspective: "It's mostly cities, no one really lives in the countryside like the mountain towns here. When Korea developed really quickly, everyone just moved to the towns to get better jobs and better money." The landscape too seems a world away; YJ told us how they have mountains in Korea, but nothing like the scale of those here in the Rockies, "Every time I see them I go 'wow'. It's been 8 months of going 'wow' *laughs*". Sophie confirmed this and remarked "Every time we walk home from work she's like 'wow' at the same mountain and I'm like 'yeah...still pretty' *laughs*". With a big smile that told us she wasn't sorry, YJ continued: "Still pretty, whenever I see them!...Even the clouds are so beautiful, cause we can't really see this wide and broad sky in Korea [because of the skyscrapers], I can't really see that far, far sky. So I really loved watching the sky in Toronto, cause it was still a big city but if you go a little further into the suburbs [you can see it]." Sophie and I remarked the downtown area of Toronto has some really beautiful places by the lakeshore and on Toronto island that are good for admiring the beauty of the city and YJ agreed, "That was really beautiful, it touched me."
Obviously very accustomed to living in big cities, I asked YJ was Toronto differed to back home, "It's very calm. I would actually say that Seoul, the capital city, is more developed than Toronto. It's so inconvenient to live in Toronto, you can't use your phone cause there's no wifi or data on the subway which is common to use wifi on the subway in Korea."
I find it truly impressive the ability some people have to speak another language so fluently and to so precisely express their thoughts. I learnt French at high school and with good ability until the age of 16, however I cannot imagine being able to converse so easily with native French speakers as YJ does with English speakers on a daily basis, especially given that English is such a complicated language. I know a lot of people who are bilingual and study language, its not too uncommon a skill in a globalised world, but I still highly admire and envy them. I wondered when and how YJ learned English and to such a skilled level, "In Korea, at school, public school. We also go to private school, to learn English, but its more like textbook English, not speaking...I might be better at talking about grammatical stuff, better than you guys, but I just can't really speak *laughs*". Sophie commented that there's only a few things that YJ has to ask her to clarify, and the best way for her to do this is to translate it into American English as it has less seemingly illogical expressions than British English. Phrases rooted from medieval periods, (a lot of Shakespearian coinages), and those originating in local dialects can be particularly confusing, which is totally understandable. To say that YJ is confronted with so many different accents, dialects and nationalities all speaking their own extension of English everyday I think she's doing a fantastic job.
Sophie had told me prior to our interview that YJ had lived abroad before in New Zealand but I didn't know too much about the circumstances or her time there, "I did another working holiday there, so it was last year, I mean two years ago now, cause it was 2016 when I went there. I stayed there for about ten months...I mostly stayed in the North, in Wellington, then I moved down to the South island, just to travel for about 13 days or so." New Zealand, like Canada and Australia, is extremely popular with gap year students and working holiday visa participants as the scenery is beyond words and its not too far a jump from our home cultures. YJ said she could draw a lot of similarities between NZ and Canada, "It was basically like Banff, I just didn't know before I came here. I found they look [really] similar and I really loved it there." Having spent most of her time in Wellington, I wanted to know the city was like as a place to live, "It was really hilly, its not very high high, but a lot of hills and hiking trails. Its so good to live in Wellington; on the front you can see the beach, the coast and you can see the Arctic Ocean...You can feel the breeze, I mean the storms, the wind is just amazing there, its the most windy city in the world. I didn't know that till I got there, the wind chill is crazy. I really want to live there again."
Now that YJ's time in Canada is coming to a close, I asked her to consider the past eight months and what she enjoyed most about her time here, "Hiking, oh I love hiking. I never really realised that I enjoy hiking when I was back home even though its really mountainous as well. Staying in New Zealand made me enjoy hiking a lot. The only thing I could spend time doing in New Zealand was hiking. There's not really much to do; it was either swimming, hiking or working, even though we were in the capital city...I guess its still nice to go up the mountains in Korea too but when we go its like an actual hiking plan, it takes seven hours or something so thats why I didn't enjoy it maybe. In New Zealand, in Wellington, you could just go up anytime, whenever you want, its kind of like that here too."
Sophie and I are eagerly awaiting the summer here in Banff, back home we love hiking but the hikes here in the Rockies are in a whole new league to the hills we would walk at home. YJ told us what it was like hiking Fairview at Lake Louise; "[It] was the most challenging, and really beautiful. That was really challenging because it was really nice and easy for the first hour and a half, I think it took me two and a half hours, but the last hour was steep and slippery. No trail exists so I literally had to climb up, crawl up, it was a really messy trail." Of course with hiking, if you go up, you've also got to get down. I asked YJ what the descent was like in comparison and she replied: "On my bum *laughs* it was super windy, the wind almost knocked me off! It was really, really scary, it wasn't really hard to walk up because it wasn't a long time but the height and how steep it was made me really scared, my legs were shaking. It was really worth it too." Fairview was a victory of another kind for YJ as well as she told us, "that mountain, I'm not sure about elevation or anything, but that mountain is as high as the tallest mountain in Korea, including North Korea too."
Not quite done with the world or travelling, YJ told me how just a few weeks after our interview, (so right now), she was leaving to travel round Central America, "I'm going to Cuba, Peru and Bolivia, then I'll be back to pick some stuff up...My visa ends in June, so I have four months left now. The reason I'm going back home is when I come back here, I'll have three months left, so no one will hire me and I'll have to find another place to stay...My original plan was to live here for the rest of my life, but you know life changes, all the time, your plan changes."
Of course this comment presented another question: would you go live anywhere else? "I'd like to because I don't really enjoy living in Korea. I've lived there for twenty something years, its obviously not good enough *laughs*. I don't want to stay there, so if I don't like staying there, I don't know, I might go to Australia. That'll be my last chance cause your working holiday ends when you hit 30. If I spend a year in Korea I'll be 28. That's my plan if I don't like in Korea. Or I might look for another job in the states. I really want to stay in the states, cause I don't really fancy Australia, it would be nice but I'm not really keen. [The visa] is easier, because the visas open all the time, so you can just go anytime you want, unlike Canada." Don't we all know it...
Without sounding like I'm here to "find myself" I have definitely learnt a lot being here just five months. I was sure YJ would also feel she had discovered things about herself and the world through all of her travelling, "I just learnt that I can be by myself, cause I really hated being by myself, eating by myself, or even just going to the doctors by myself, I hated it. But then travelling by myself, I was afraid of it at first, but I found that I could meet different people, every single day, and that was really interesting. I didn't really realise I could initiate conversation. When I was in New Zealand I think I moved every two days when I was on the South Island, so I had to meet new people every two days, and I always opened conversations. I didn't really realise I was that kind of person, that was a really good time."
Having felt like I had learnt so much from this conversation alone, my final question for YJ was whether Canada had lived up to all that she expected?: "[Canada] was more than I expected, because when I saw this scenery in pictures and then when I saw it in person, it was more than I was expecting. The people I met here were nicer than I was expecting. When I met Sophie for the first time, I thought 'she must be really quiet' and I don't always like to start talking to foreign people, I'm afraid to talk. But meeting people like Sophie was a really good time here, everyone's really nice, they are super friendly...It was really nice to be around people with the same mindset, who want to try something new and explore this town." I couldn't agree more, I feel so lucky and humble to have met such a wonderful community of people in Banff who do all share the same mindset and adventurous minds. Its really the people you're with that make your time travelling. I couldn't be more grateful to live with such amazing people as my housemates are and to work with the lovely ladies that I do at work. You're all blessings to me.
Having finished my questions and our cake we sat in Whitebark a little longer just talking about life and everything that was going on within our world here in the mountains. I couldn't be more thankful to YJ for giving up her remaining time in Banff to talk to me, it truly was an enlightening and inspiring interview, I think Wellington is now securely on my ever-growing list of places to go next...
As I said, YJ is currently on her travels round Central America, if you'd like to check out her latest escapades and some great shots of her hiking Banff's most famous peaks, I've put link to her Instagram below. Thank you all for reading YJ's story, I hope you found it as fascinating as I did.
Follow YJ:
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Obviously very accustomed to living in big cities, I asked YJ was Toronto differed to back home, "It's very calm. I would actually say that Seoul, the capital city, is more developed than Toronto. It's so inconvenient to live in Toronto, you can't use your phone cause there's no wifi or data on the subway which is common to use wifi on the subway in Korea."
I find it truly impressive the ability some people have to speak another language so fluently and to so precisely express their thoughts. I learnt French at high school and with good ability until the age of 16, however I cannot imagine being able to converse so easily with native French speakers as YJ does with English speakers on a daily basis, especially given that English is such a complicated language. I know a lot of people who are bilingual and study language, its not too uncommon a skill in a globalised world, but I still highly admire and envy them. I wondered when and how YJ learned English and to such a skilled level, "In Korea, at school, public school. We also go to private school, to learn English, but its more like textbook English, not speaking...I might be better at talking about grammatical stuff, better than you guys, but I just can't really speak *laughs*". Sophie commented that there's only a few things that YJ has to ask her to clarify, and the best way for her to do this is to translate it into American English as it has less seemingly illogical expressions than British English. Phrases rooted from medieval periods, (a lot of Shakespearian coinages), and those originating in local dialects can be particularly confusing, which is totally understandable. To say that YJ is confronted with so many different accents, dialects and nationalities all speaking their own extension of English everyday I think she's doing a fantastic job.
Sophie had told me prior to our interview that YJ had lived abroad before in New Zealand but I didn't know too much about the circumstances or her time there, "I did another working holiday there, so it was last year, I mean two years ago now, cause it was 2016 when I went there. I stayed there for about ten months...I mostly stayed in the North, in Wellington, then I moved down to the South island, just to travel for about 13 days or so." New Zealand, like Canada and Australia, is extremely popular with gap year students and working holiday visa participants as the scenery is beyond words and its not too far a jump from our home cultures. YJ said she could draw a lot of similarities between NZ and Canada, "It was basically like Banff, I just didn't know before I came here. I found they look [really] similar and I really loved it there." Having spent most of her time in Wellington, I wanted to know the city was like as a place to live, "It was really hilly, its not very high high, but a lot of hills and hiking trails. Its so good to live in Wellington; on the front you can see the beach, the coast and you can see the Arctic Ocean...You can feel the breeze, I mean the storms, the wind is just amazing there, its the most windy city in the world. I didn't know that till I got there, the wind chill is crazy. I really want to live there again."
Now that YJ's time in Canada is coming to a close, I asked her to consider the past eight months and what she enjoyed most about her time here, "Hiking, oh I love hiking. I never really realised that I enjoy hiking when I was back home even though its really mountainous as well. Staying in New Zealand made me enjoy hiking a lot. The only thing I could spend time doing in New Zealand was hiking. There's not really much to do; it was either swimming, hiking or working, even though we were in the capital city...I guess its still nice to go up the mountains in Korea too but when we go its like an actual hiking plan, it takes seven hours or something so thats why I didn't enjoy it maybe. In New Zealand, in Wellington, you could just go up anytime, whenever you want, its kind of like that here too."
Sophie and I are eagerly awaiting the summer here in Banff, back home we love hiking but the hikes here in the Rockies are in a whole new league to the hills we would walk at home. YJ told us what it was like hiking Fairview at Lake Louise; "[It] was the most challenging, and really beautiful. That was really challenging because it was really nice and easy for the first hour and a half, I think it took me two and a half hours, but the last hour was steep and slippery. No trail exists so I literally had to climb up, crawl up, it was a really messy trail." Of course with hiking, if you go up, you've also got to get down. I asked YJ what the descent was like in comparison and she replied: "On my bum *laughs* it was super windy, the wind almost knocked me off! It was really, really scary, it wasn't really hard to walk up because it wasn't a long time but the height and how steep it was made me really scared, my legs were shaking. It was really worth it too." Fairview was a victory of another kind for YJ as well as she told us, "that mountain, I'm not sure about elevation or anything, but that mountain is as high as the tallest mountain in Korea, including North Korea too."
Not quite done with the world or travelling, YJ told me how just a few weeks after our interview, (so right now), she was leaving to travel round Central America, "I'm going to Cuba, Peru and Bolivia, then I'll be back to pick some stuff up...My visa ends in June, so I have four months left now. The reason I'm going back home is when I come back here, I'll have three months left, so no one will hire me and I'll have to find another place to stay...My original plan was to live here for the rest of my life, but you know life changes, all the time, your plan changes."
Of course this comment presented another question: would you go live anywhere else? "I'd like to because I don't really enjoy living in Korea. I've lived there for twenty something years, its obviously not good enough *laughs*. I don't want to stay there, so if I don't like staying there, I don't know, I might go to Australia. That'll be my last chance cause your working holiday ends when you hit 30. If I spend a year in Korea I'll be 28. That's my plan if I don't like in Korea. Or I might look for another job in the states. I really want to stay in the states, cause I don't really fancy Australia, it would be nice but I'm not really keen. [The visa] is easier, because the visas open all the time, so you can just go anytime you want, unlike Canada." Don't we all know it...
Without sounding like I'm here to "find myself" I have definitely learnt a lot being here just five months. I was sure YJ would also feel she had discovered things about herself and the world through all of her travelling, "I just learnt that I can be by myself, cause I really hated being by myself, eating by myself, or even just going to the doctors by myself, I hated it. But then travelling by myself, I was afraid of it at first, but I found that I could meet different people, every single day, and that was really interesting. I didn't really realise I could initiate conversation. When I was in New Zealand I think I moved every two days when I was on the South Island, so I had to meet new people every two days, and I always opened conversations. I didn't really realise I was that kind of person, that was a really good time."
Having felt like I had learnt so much from this conversation alone, my final question for YJ was whether Canada had lived up to all that she expected?: "[Canada] was more than I expected, because when I saw this scenery in pictures and then when I saw it in person, it was more than I was expecting. The people I met here were nicer than I was expecting. When I met Sophie for the first time, I thought 'she must be really quiet' and I don't always like to start talking to foreign people, I'm afraid to talk. But meeting people like Sophie was a really good time here, everyone's really nice, they are super friendly...It was really nice to be around people with the same mindset, who want to try something new and explore this town." I couldn't agree more, I feel so lucky and humble to have met such a wonderful community of people in Banff who do all share the same mindset and adventurous minds. Its really the people you're with that make your time travelling. I couldn't be more grateful to live with such amazing people as my housemates are and to work with the lovely ladies that I do at work. You're all blessings to me.
Having finished my questions and our cake we sat in Whitebark a little longer just talking about life and everything that was going on within our world here in the mountains. I couldn't be more thankful to YJ for giving up her remaining time in Banff to talk to me, it truly was an enlightening and inspiring interview, I think Wellington is now securely on my ever-growing list of places to go next...
As I said, YJ is currently on her travels round Central America, if you'd like to check out her latest escapades and some great shots of her hiking Banff's most famous peaks, I've put link to her Instagram below. Thank you all for reading YJ's story, I hope you found it as fascinating as I did.
Follow YJ:
Follow A Small Allowance:
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