Not a Giver, but One Who Has Received

Fathers share a particular instinct: they want to pass along the most valuable thing they’ve learned to their children. In the winter of 1999, after I’d finished Korea’s college entrance exam, my father decided there was something he wanted to show me: downtown Seoul—the place where he had spent half his life working at a bank and building a life.

We boarded an intercity bus at dawn. Our first stop was Gwanghwamun because I’d begged to see Kyobo Bookstore. People said there was a massive underground store there where “every book lives.” It was all true, and then some. For a kid whose only bookstore was a neighborhood shop that sold test-prep workbooks, Kyobo felt like discovering a new species of place. I lingered longest in the foreign-language section, running my fingers over the smooth, creamy paper of English originals stacked in impossible variety.

Near lunchtime we moved toward City Hall and ducked into a Chinese restaurant run by a local Chinese-Korean family—one of the places my father used to visit when he worked nearby. The interior was trimmed in bright reds and golds. He told me their specialty was jeonggabbok—a lavish, old-school seafood-and-meat medley—but the chef said they were out of the ingredients that day. We ordered a noodle dish with a name I’d never heard. Up to then, “Chinese food” to me meant black-bean noodles, spicy seafood soup, and sweet-and-sour pork; this tasted like a door opening.

Outside, the air was dry and knife-cold. We could have taken a bus or the subway to our next stop, but we decided to walk. Coats buttoned to our chins, we headed for Seoul Station.

The square felt like two eras layered on one scene: a sliver of end-of-the-century giddiness mixed with the raw aftertaste of the “IMF crisis,” the Asian financial crash that had slammed Korea just a few years earlier. Church groups shouted through tinny bullhorns, calling passersby to repent and be saved. Off to the side, the people most in need of saving were swaying in loose clusters—men who had slipped through every seam of the economy and now slept rough and drank to stay warm. I’d seen scenes like this on a TV in our school cafeteria. Seeing it an arm’s length away was different.

A few men wolfed down bread and milk—probably from vouchers they’d received after donating blood. My eyes stuck to them. My father, hands clasped behind his back, watched with me for a moment and asked quietly, “Do they look pitiful to you?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Don’t forget,” he said, “the blood some of those men give because they’re hungry might one day save your life.”

It felt like being struck. I could suddenly see the post-op images as if I were back there again: the red bags hanging above my head after heart surgery, the slow drip that helped bring me back. I wasn’t someone who would go through life “bestowing” help. I was someone whose life had been given back to him—quite literally—by others. At best, I could return a fraction of what I’d received.

“Giving” is a beautiful word. It sounds generous, warm—even noble. But “giving” can also make you forget how much you yourself have been given. It can smuggle in a message: Look at what I achieved; I’ll share a little with you who have less. The truth is, no one makes it alone. If you are “educated,” it’s because someone taught you. If you “have,” it’s because someone, somewhere, gave. The right frame isn’t charity; it’s giving back. That mental shift takes nerve—and humility.

My father’s one sentence rewrote the job description I was chasing. If I became a doctor, my work couldn’t be about “bestowing.” It had to be about returning what I’d already received. The question that followed became my compass: Not as a giver, but as one who has received—where is my place?

Answering that question became the path I chose.