For Christine, landing at Incheon Airport made it all real. She was on her own.

“What if I freak out and get super lonely and need to run back home?” she thought. “What are my friends and family going to say?”

Christine is one of 13 non-Koreans who talked to Eileen Cahill for “Piñatas for the Year of the Dragon: Conversations With Current and Former Expats in South Korea.”

Others include Elaine, who came here to escape New York City after struggling in the recession and found a career in journalism, and Sonia, who wanted to try something new before settling down in the United States but got disillusioned when she finally went “home.”

There’s also Ron, who made a midlife pivot after 11 years as a full-time Hare Krishna devotee in Florida, and Adam, who wasn’t sure he was “goofy” enough to be a good teacher.

Two chapters are more sobering. Mario, a Japanese photographer and nonprofit worker, discusses his work to support the South Korean survivors of Japanese military sexual slavery in their fight to correct the historical record. And Yiombi Thona, a well-known refugee activist and human rights educator from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, shares his perspective on discrimination, multiculturalism, raising a Congolese family in South Korea, and why the country’s refugee system still needs improvement despite having made progress “on paper.”

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Eileen Cahill

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