Suyeon Lee

This is Suyeon Lee. Please call her by Suyeon, Su, or Sue, but don’t call her Suyong or Suyoung. She might get a little bit upset. She was born and raised in South Korea except for the three years she spent in Shanghai with her ambitious mom who suddenly wanted to learn Chinese for no reason.

 

Her first visit to Southeast Asia was 17 years ago, with a group of spoiled Korean tourists who would ask for Kimchi and aircon wherever they go. Although her first impression of Southeast Asia was not so great – hot, humid weather and spicy food – she continued to develop her interest in the region as she observed a great influx of marriage and labor migrants from Southeast Asia to South Korea. She was also very mad at some people in her own countries, who would tell her how amazing and cheap Thailand was, not even knowing which country is next to it or its cultural background. Also, she has a twin grandfather who participated in the Vietnam war and would proundly brag about how he could secretly smuggle eletronic devices like TV and products from US thanks to the war. Also, growing up, she saw a lot of news regarding how Korean tourists visit Southeast Asia (mainly the Philippines) for sex tourism and gave rise to a new group of kids called “Kopinos,” mixed children abandoned by their biological Korean fathers.