Ep.3 “My First Day in Middle School – Friendship, Teen Years, and Books”

Hi everyone, this is Susan.When I first started middle school in Australia, the very first thing I did was look for another Korean student. I was too shy and nervous to make friends with local kids, so I naturally became close to other Koreans.

Back then, I was obsessed with Korean culture. It was the late 90s, and H.O.T was everything. I collected their photos, listened to their music, and just lived in my own little K-pop world. I guess I was a bit of a dramatic teenager.

I also loved reading. But since my English wasn’t that strong, it was hard to find books that matched both my age and my language level. The easy books were too childish, and the difficult ones were impossible to follow. That’s something a lot of kids who move countries in their teens go through — your thoughts grow faster than your words.

So I turned to Korean books. I started borrowing every Korean book I could find at local council libraries — in Campsie, in Burwood, everywhere. There was always a small Korean section, and I read through them all, one by one.

It didn’t matter what kind of book it was — romance novels, nonfiction, even classics. I just missed reading Korean so much that I devoured anything I could get my hands on. I remember reading The Three Kingdoms, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, and even The Water Margin.

But the book that truly changed me was “A Woman’s Life Is Decided in Her Twenties” by In-sook Nam. I read it when I was nineteen, sitting in the corner of a library.There was one line that hit me deeply: “Society expects young women to stay pure.”That sentence woke me up. It made me want to be more real, more independent, and more practical about life.

Looking back, those Korean books that people carried all the way to Australia — they were precious. They shaped the way I saw the world.And I think reading them is what helped me grow up fast, marry young, and start life earlier than most.Books raised me when words couldn’t.