Chapter 1: The First Breath

I was born in Seoul, South Korea, in a wealthy good family, and a home full of sound and color.

My father loved music. He mastered perfectly work-life balance. He was an engineer and a great athlete; he was disciplined and organized, capable of learning anything: piano, guitar, singing, simply out of curiosity and passion. Always focused. Always all in.

My mother was the one with the colors. She painted the visible and invisible world. She was specialized into abstract oil painting. An artist and professor at the university, she had that strength, that gaze that sees beyond what’s visible, and that sharp awareness of the captured moment.

When I was three, we left Korea for Germany, following my father’s job. I grew up there, in a joyful, accomplished, and bright childhood. I was an excellent student, very self-confident but with a big heart. I had a strong personality and was extremely competitive, but only in what really mattered to me. Sports, for example, did not mean much to me. My dad was desperate!

There was an upright piano at home. I hated piano lessons, but I played on my own, for hours and hours. I too had inherited my father’s gift for focus, from a very young age. I always blew into things, too : bottles, reeds, strange objects. Breath, already, was calling me.

Later, we returned to Korea. I spoke the language, but not fluently – I didn’t understand the social codes. My parents, wisely, said: “Choose something artistic, where language doesn’t create barriers.” My mother wanted me to paint, like her. She signed me up for art classes. But the teacher corrected me on some chrysanthemums: I had to paint them petal by petal… it annoyed me, and I never went back. My sister went along with it, she was nicer than me.

My mother, slightly annoyed, asked me: “So what do you want to do, then?”
I answered: “That.”

My neighbor used to show off with her shiny flute. She said, look, how shiny my instrument is, and how I look like a princess, and that bothered me. I thought I could do better. Indeed.

My aunt in the U.S. sent me a Yamaha flute. I started blowing. I progressed quickly. I had a good and invested teacher who was a student at Seoul National University. A few months later, my grandmother bought me a real flute from a boutique in Ginza, Japan: a Muramatsu with a silver headjoint, taken right from the shop window. It sparkled and felt warm in my hands. The case had a cobalt blue velvet lining. I loved it. I learned to support, to blow well, to articulate, all without pressure but precisely.

School wasn’t difficult. I woke up at 5 alone when needed, to read and prepare classes, otherwise I just paid attention in class and that was always enough to keep up. I had excellent grades. I even used to answer a few questions wrong on purpose at exams, just to avoid being top of the class. I didn’t want extra chores. Therefore, School wasn’t much interesting. On the other hand, Flute was a fun challenge, especially because I wasn’t a prodigy. I had to work at it, and I liked that.

At ten, I met Alain Marion for the first time, in Paris. I was so young… he sometimes spoke about it later*. He complimented me and asked me to do double tonguing. I said I hadn’t learned it yet. So I learned it with him. I had only been playing for a year. I always did the bare minimum, nothing more. I entered competitions. Never first, always second. But that didn’t bother me. I didn’t feel I needed to shine. I already knew I was someone. A good student. A girl from a good family. My life felt solid, respected, framed. I joined an Art Junior High School, majored Flute. That was the natural next step.

After school, I always went to the nearby shopping mall. I loved the stationery shop. There was also an aquarium in the basement. The young man who worked there used to play ping pong with me. I don’t remember well, but one day, I think he touched my chest. I instinctively knew that wasn’t right. Maybe that’s the moment I decided I didn’t want to live in Korea anymore. It is very vague.

So I found my way out : to go study flute in France. There was that Girl who got invited by Professor Marion, but she wasn’t much interested.
So I decided: I would become a flutist. Why not, I can achieve everything.

I started practicing seriously.

At fourteen, after his three trips to Korea and noticing my remarkable progress, Alain Marion finally invited me to come study in Paris. I was 14.

I took the chance. My mother didn’t want me to go, my father on the other hand, since he left home himself at age 16, thought it was a good idea. No one suspected anything else. It did not come to my mind either, I had forgotten. I was focused, and not much bothered by closed matters. My mother wanted me to leave after university. I said I wanted to leave right now. She had to give in. I was so determined, there was nothing she or anyone else could do.

So she let me go, but she came with me. She applied for an Art School in Paris, but just for the papers. I was legally not allowed to go abroad for studies at that time.

I arrived in France, landed in Nice with my mother, flying business class because we got upgraded, and there was this French male fight attendant, very handsome with a pink shirt. Very impressive. I attended a summer masterclass with Monsieur Marion. Everything went well, and we decided to follow him to Salzburg for another masterclass but that one I went alone. Mom put me together with the accompanist and her boyfriend in the same appartment, she was probably worried about leaving me alone.

I played in class in front of all the big students. Monsieur Marion was a good teacher, he asked me to play scales. I couldn’t do them well. He kept insisting. I failed. It was so humiliating. I bursted into tears.

That’s when I started really working. Seriously. Five hours a day. With a metronome. Organized and meticulous. Every day.

And I made progress. Great progress.

*I went back to Paris about 15 years later and met Monsieur Marion at the Paris Conservatory. That’s another story being told later.