We are on Korean radio every week! We are on a show called Global Family on tbs eFM Koreascape every Wednesday at 9:30am. Another international couple Emil and Yumin who are a Danish/Korean couple are also on the show with us, as well as the host Kurt. This show is all in English.

We’ve done a lot of radio before but always as one time guests and we do get asked the same questions a lot. Because this is a weekly series we get to delve deeper into what it’s like being an intercultural couple in Korea. It’s also great to compare to another couple as well and see the different ways people deal with challenges. It will be interesting to see what topics come up. So far it’s been in a chronological order of meeting, getting married, meeting inlaws but it will be great to talk about things we don’t usually get to talk about in interviews. Most interviews, whether it be for articles or radio always ask the same questions, and we get really sick of answering them. But with this radio show we can explore a lot more. Emil and Yumin are great as well and we really enjoy working with them.

What we filmed for this video was meant to be part of a Seoul Life video but I’m now the sick one so we haven’t been able to film the other parts. But we wanted to let people know that we are on Korean radio every week so they can tune in. I know not everyone follows the social media where we announce things like this.

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Also let us know what other aspects of our life you’d like to see in vlogs or what topics you’d like us to talk about.

GO FUND ME PAGE: https://www.gofundme.com/yellowisthenewbec

Becca’s story:

Diagnosed at age 4 with rare liver disease, PSC (pscpartners.org) and ulcerative colitis.
By age 8 (1995) received 1st transplant at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota but there were many complications, disease returned quickly.

Age 11 (1999) received 2nd transplant at Mayo. Lived for 3 years without the liver disease but had developed other problems like migraines.

Age 20 was put back on the transplant list. A third liver transplant was risky and I was not likely to get a liver. In America we mostly rely on cadaver donors (dead people) for organs. There is a strict system for how these organs are allocated and I wasn’t as promising a candidate as say, a child needing their first transplant. 2011 at age 23 I got the transplant, though. 5 years of relative health followed but I had developed more issues like arthritis, polycystic ovarian syndrome, fibromyalgia, chronic pain and more. It was during this 5 year period that I travelled to Korea for language school and ended up meeting my future husband. I moved officially to South Korea in 2014

My health was doing okay until one day in late July I had terrible abdominal pain and went to the emergency room. I was admitted to the hospital and it was discovered that there were all sorts of problems with my liver that hadn’t been there even 10 months previous. It looked like the disease was returning and I also had lots of infection, keeping me in the hospital for a month.
As the situation got worse, we decided I had a better chance of survival by going back to Mayo Clinic in America. I was barely healthy enough to fly but I made it.
Before I came I worked hard with my parents to set up insurance since I hadn’t lived in America for quite some time and hadn’t maintained any. I just had Korean government insurance that only works within Korea. It wasn’t until a day or so before I left that we found out we could not get insurance coverage for over a week. We did everything we could with the insurance company, even got the help of local politicians but there was nothing to be done.
And I was/am in bad shape. I needed to be hospitalized right away upon arriving in America. My lack of insurance means I cannot afford to go to the hospital but not going to the hospital means being very risky with my life.
Because we need money so desperately (even without the insurance problem this was going to be a huge financial burden) my husband has had to stay in Korea to continue making a paycheck but will come to America if the situation calls for it. If things here turn out to be long-term then we will consider him immigrating.

A friend of mine thought of starting the fundraiser on gofundme and I gave her permission. We never dreamed it would get so much attention. We all hate asking for money but are unbeievably grateful for what people have given. It will be put directly to use paying for my medical bills.

We get a lot of messages where people need advice and we do out best to answer them. We decided it was time to make a video talking about how we make our marriage work and what things we do to make a happy life together. The video was actually over 30 mins long but of course cut down, so there was many more things we had to say!

We wrote down what we wanted to say, but I ended up doing more of the talking because Hugh isn’t as comfortable in English for a more scripted video BUT if you get him in person he will talk your ear off!

I have yet been able to enforce this rule. Maybe never having our own place and never the freedom to be completely nude before has caused this situation of constant nudity at home now.

It has lead to some interesting situations, like the story we told in our recent SEOUL LIFE video.

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Martina comes to visit her old stuff! Simon and Martina (Eat Your Kimchi) were in Korea for a few days and Martina came to visit our apartment (Simon was sick unfortunately). A lot of our furniture is from their old apartment and their studio. It has been such a big help to us to already have this furniture and not having to buy it all once we moved to Seoul. We are really lucky to have them as friends. We actually talked about when we first met in Sydney years ago, and how far we’ve come.

Going back to the countryside was a bit strange. There were things that were comfortable, but other things that were weird. Also not really having a purpose because its not our home anymore leaves a weird feeling of not knowing what to do.

Rainy season has started! There is no way to not get soaked during this time. Luckily it’s not every day, just a more days of torrential rain during this time.

I saw a quote that was something like “Marriage is asking each other what you want to eat until you die” haha. Hugh is sneaky as he always gets in first and asks me what we should eat so I can suggest 10 things that he can say no to. Although I can be a pickier eater, he is pickier when choosing what we should eat because he takes his food so seriously.

I shouldn’t have taught him the response, or I should have said “no returns”. I know there are variations of this too. Do people do it where you live? Or is there something else people do on the first of the month? I think where I grew up people sometimes responded with a “pinch and a kick for being so quick” too.

He actually did this to me hours later… I might go flick him in the forehead to respect his Korean culture…

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Nichola talks to things a lot. And I understand because we don’t have a pet so plants are her pets. That’s weird but cute. But eats mint… poor mint…

If you want to see more about our life in Seoul please subscribe to our YouTube channel.

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Our new video series! We’ll be making a Seoul Life video every week and we’ll talk about how we are adjusting to Seoul, show some footage we have filmed and answer some questions. In this video we talk about dirty apartments and ghosts, show you the Han river, answer some questions and show you the chaos of moving into an apartment and not having essential appliances yet.

This video is a collab with The Drunken Bear YouTube channel, so check out their video here:

We love collaborating with other couples, especially Aussie/Korean couples. Rachel and Nick will appear in another video coming out soon too!

We sure had a lot to talk about! This was a lot of fun to film. We actually filmed it before we were in Australia for 6 weeks and almost couldn’t find the footage again, but I’m glad we did. After filming this we were like, “Oh I just remembered something else annoying you do!”

In some ways we are really similar but in other ways we are complete opposites. Seriously, who wants to unpack their suitcase at 1am???