My 22-year-old daughter recently visited South Korea country for the first time and doing so was not a decision her dad and I supported, owing to the current political unrest in the neighboring North Korea. However, she found the local people to be kind and generous, which made her stay relaxing and enjoyable.

One incident that really punctuated how impressed I became with your country happened when she and her friends visited Busan. My daughter lost her wallet there. She and her friends scoured the local shops they’d visited and a restaurant they’d eaten in. But unfortunately, her wallet didn’t turn up.

She was certain that someone had found it, taken advantage of the cash she had in it and might have even tried to use the credit cards she carried. We were able to promptly cancel the credit cards but that didn’t make her feel any better.

She and her friends planned on spending another week in South Korea before flying home to the United States, so she was reduced to borrowing money from her friends for the rest of her trip. She was devastated.

However, the next morning when she went to her hotel desk to acquire a new room key, the desk had her wallet. A kind passerby had discovered her wallet, noticed the hotel room key and correctly assumed that was where she was staying.

Everything, including the cash, was accounted for. I’m embarrassed to say that had that happened in the United States, the outcome most likely would not have been that happy. The person or persons that returned my daughter’s wallet left no name. If they are reading this in The Korea Herald, I want to tell them “thank you” and also that they have done their country proud by doing an honorable thing.

Too often nowadays, countries are judged by the broad sweep of social media’s pen. They end up representing the presumed nature of a country’s people based on local politics and the ill will of neighboring societies.

We forget that oftentimes, especially in my daughter’s recent visit, it’s the small gestures of the kind, local people that end up making the best impression.

And so, I want to say “thank you” for breaking all the negative stereotypes my husband and I had formed about your lovely country and its populace. My daughter and her friends had a wonderful time!


Kimberly Poulton 
West Bountiful, Utah