ANNA STEPHANIE
Anna Stephanie (hereinafter, ‘Anna’) came to Korea on Christmas, December 25, 2017. The reason she set foot on this strange land where she knew no one was because of the research she was doing.
Anna’s father is American and her mother is German, and she was born and raised in Mosbach, a small town near Heidelberg in southern Germany. Anna taught at an elementary school in Germany, but she wanted to study more and majored in early childhood education. She learned about hakwon, the private educational institute in Korea while studying and came to Korea to study about it.
She loved traveling and so she got a working holiday visa, and worked and studied in Korea. Anna is tall and pretty, modeling as a part-time job, and also taught children. Thanks to this, she was able to finish her studies in March of this year.
She originally came to Korea for her research study, but Anna found a huge unexpected gift in life, her husband, apart from achieving her original purpose to complete her thesis.
Her husband Il-sun Hwang, who works as a teacher at a hakwon, met Anna and helped her with her thesis, ending up becoming her lover. They understood each other well and found many things common and they decided to get married. They have now been married for four months and are enjoying their honeymoon life.
# COLUMBUS ANNA
Anna loves to explore the area around her. Her friends call her, ‘Columbus’. It is a nickname that she got after traveling from places to places like Columbus, who went on fearless explorations, looking for an unknown continent.
She says she has a lot of time because she is taking a break until her visa is processed and she travels whenever she has the chance. Anna, who lives in Songdo, likes to walk, but she says there are some restrictions because Songdo is a metropolis. She often takes a walk to Michuhol Park near her home, but she can’t go to other places without driving, so she enjoys taking short trips to Nam-gu or the old streets of Namdong-gu. Growing up in a small town where everyone knows everyone else, she prefers a friendly small town to a big city and she says she does not like Seoul at all because it is packed with people and prices are high and it is much better to live in Incheon.
Incheon Terminal that can take her to any city whenever she wishes is one of her favorite places. Her husband, Il-sun, has too much work and is very busy, so, they don’t have many chances to travel together and she thus enjoys traveling alone.
Anna is sociable and active and she cherishes the relationships she has built in Korea. Anna had lived in a boarding house in Bupyeong before coming to Songdo, and she boasts of her special relationship with the landlady. Even now, she calls the landlady of the boarding house, 'Mom', gets in touch with her frequently and even visits her on big holidays such as Korean thanksgiving and Lunar New Year’s Day. This is where her affable character comes out.
# NEW START
Although she and her husband, Il-sun, registered their marriage and live as a married couple, they did not have a wedding. The wedding is scheduled for August next year. In addition to the wedding, Anna is preparing to start a new job, which is to prepare for a class that teaches her native language, German. There are still visa-related administrative procedures she has to complete, but she plans to open her class soon.
Anna found her love and occupation in Korea and has lived a happy life. One bad thing is that her husband is too busy, but when they have time, they enjoy playing games together and going to festivals, concerts, and movies, getting used to the newly-weds’ life in Korea
There are still many things that she is clumsy about such as the Korean language, but those are just what she has to learn and master as it goes and is not a problem at all. She has nothing to be afraid of because she has her husband who will provide strong support Dreaming of a future that the two of them can build together takes up enough of her time to worry about other things.
