Once her sisters started school, the rest of us — my parents, Penny, Jin and I — were busy finding our feet. Setting up the house, learning how things work here, figuring out the basics of a new life. Finding a daycare for Jin was part of that.
We visited two. One was large and well-equipped — spacious rooms, purpose-built play areas, everything gleaming. The other was small and homely, a little worn, with the warmth of someone's living room. Jin chose the small one. In a new country where everything already felt too big, she reached for the space that felt safe.
She started at four hours a day.
Most days were fine, but some mornings she'd resist. When I asked why, she said quietly: "They only speak English here. I don't understand." After her grandparents flew home to Korea, she started saying something else too: "I want to go back."
Her teacher helped. He was Chinese, married to a Korean woman, and could manage a few Korean words — enough to make Jin feel seen. She latched onto him immediately, calling him Kindy Daddy. He became her anchor.
The centre was play-based and unhurried. Nobody expected her to sit and learn. And within days, she surprised us — she came home and asked for her water bottle. Not 물병. Water bottle. Her first English word, swapped in naturally where the Korean one used to be.
She made friends quickly too — a handful of Korean girls her age, drawn together in the sandpit the way four-year-olds are. Between them and Alan Daddy and the easy rhythm of the place, she found her footing.
