Episode 3 — The Distance Between Words

Essays on love, language, and cultural differences 

— by Hyungihn Myung.

Patience alone could never break through the wall of culture.

We grew up in different worlds, so of course, we saw things differently.
But I had underestimated how complex language could be—
and how fragile love becomes when you trust it too much.
I believed love could make everything possible.
I didn’t know it could also break us.

I once remembered what my professor said in a linguistics lecture:
 “Language can’t be learned from a textbook. It’s alive.”

It was a sharp edge of truth.
When students asked why English-speaking cultures were so direct,
she always hesitated.

Even native speakers can’t easily explain the logic behind their language.
It’s something you live, not study.

I realized later that it was the same for Korean.
Natural speech comes from life, not lessons.
My boyfriend grew up learning how to speak by living, not by studying.

Whenever we talked in Korean, he often said he felt frustrated— not because I didn’t understand, but because he couldn’t explain things the way he wanted to.
Language and emotion got tangled together, like a stone stuck deep inside a pipe.

If language were a play,
the nouns, verbs, and adjectives are only background actors.
Without a living heartbeat at the center, no sentence can survive.
I was imitating language, but my words couldn’t reach his heart.

We had different ways of thinking—different roots,
like oil and water.
People say love cuts through anything,
but our love was like trying to slice through oil floating on water.
In cold weather, the oil turned cloudy and stiff.
And when a knife touched it, it cracked.

It only took one person to break
for love to begin falling apart.
Looking back, I realize how impossible it all was.

He had learned that silence was kindness.
I had learned that expression was.
For me, caring meant explaining what I felt— naming the emotion, describing the moment.
For him, silence was the way to protect peace. To me, it felt like disconnection.

He thought silence was love. I thought silence was distance.

I never believed I could read another person’s mind.
Trying to understand someone’s inner thoughts felt like an intrusion.
So I didn’t guess—I only described what I could see.

When someone came wearing new clothes, I said, “Nice outfit. What’s up?”
I didn’t assume it was payday, or a promotion, or a new romance.
I believed that respect began with restraint— not assuming what isn’t mine to know.

In the beginning, my boyfriend loved that about me.
He said I responded well, and respected his opinions.
When I said what I liked and didn’t like, it made planning dates easy.
We were happy.
But that season didn’t last.
The things he loved about me were about to become the reasons we fought.

One evening, we were looking for dinner.
He asked, “What do you want to eat?”
I said, “Hmm, sushi sounds good. But I’d be fine with spicy pork, too.”
He smiled. “Let’s have what you want. Where should we go?”

I thought he meant between the two, so I said, “Let’s get sushi.”

He paused. “I don’t really eat raw fish… maybe something else?”

It wasn’t about the food. He really didn’t like sashimi.

Still, I asked gently,
“What do you want to eat, then?
Maybe we can find something we both like.”

After a moment, he said, “Chicken.”
I didn’t know until later that he’d often given up his own preferences for mine.
He knew I wasn’t in the mood for chicken that day, but we were both hungry—someone had to give in.

So I did. “Okay, let’s get chicken.”

It wasn’t a compromise. It was surrender.
And that’s when the fight began.

He said he wanted chicken too, but wanted me to enjoy the meal.
I had just eaten chicken with my family days ago.

I offered, “Pork cutlet?”
He shook his head.
“Chicken?”
“That feels unfair.”
“Chicken sushi?”
“Uh, It's not fun.”

I joked to lighten the mood, but it only made things worse.
In America, we have Spam sushi and even fried pork sushi, so I am not intend to make fun him. Still, the air froze.

I was too hungry to think straight.
Finally, I said slowly,
“This isn’t getting us anywhere. It’s already seven pm. Let’s eat first, talk later. We’re both hungry. Let’s just have chicken for now.”

The room went quiet.
Too quiet. I should’ve stopped there.

I was trying to fix the situation logically— but reason only made it worse.
We ended up skipping the chicken altogether and walking into a kimbap diner instead.
That day, I understood why Kimbap Heaven was Korea’s most democratic restaurant—
everyone can eat there without losing face.

It wasn’t his fault. I knew that.
The same thing had happened with my parents.

Every meal began with the same question:
“What do you want to eat?”

And every time, I had to calculate the invisible math.
If it was someone’s birthday, the birthday person got to choose.
But somehow, my father always made the final call.

The only time I got to choose was when I hadn’t seen them for a while—

when affection softened authority.

Maybe that’s why I grew up American inside a conservative Korean home.

Once, out of frustration, I said to my dad,
“Just order what you want, Dad. It’s not really my choice anyway.”
He blew up. “Don’t talk back to your father!”
But these days, he doesn’t yell anymore.
He knows I won’t bend.

Dating my boyfriend felt like a new exam from the same book.

When he asked, “What do you want to eat?”
the answer wasn’t really about food.
He already had something in mind, but love made him hesitate.
His kindness turned into confusion.

If it were now, I’d know what to say.
“Wow, you’re buying dinner? Such a gentleman. Then sushi it is. Thanks! Next time, I’ll get your favorite.”

That’s all he needed— to see me happy.
A little playfulness, and both of us could’ve won.

But back then, I wasn’t that fluent in love.
I was logical.
“I’ll step back this time,” I told myself.

I handed the choice to him— a gesture that probably looked cold.
Ironically, that kind of restraint works perfectly in America.

In the early days, we could endure small sacrifices.
But after a year, even kindness grew heavy.
He once told me, “I don’t want to act like a boss in this relationship.”

To him, love was freedom, not negotiation.
To me, compromise was balance, not surrender.
I thought, This isn’t a trade—it’s teamwork.
If I give now, he’ll give next time.
That’s fair, right?

But maybe I was too precise.
Too neat.

My logic made his warmth look foolish.
By trying to make things right, I turned sincerity into rejection.

Only later did I realize: in Korea, even gentle refusal can feel like a wound.
In America, clarity is respect. In Korea, it can be cold.

My “honesty” became a wall.
And just as his “I’m fine” weighed on me, my “distance in expression” weighed on him.

Even when I didn’t say everything, he could feel what I held back.
For someone who loved my expressiveness, my silence confused him more.

What to express, what to hide— that became our next language lesson.

The distance between us
wasn’t about words.
It was about how we used them—
and how much silence we left between.