Where do you live?

Mr. Oh: Well, as of now, we are living in the Bay Area, in a small city named Concord.

Where was your hometown in Korea?

Mr. Oh: I was born in Seoul, and my family has been living there for the last 200 years, so quite a long time.

When did you immigrate to the U.S., and was there a specific reason?

Mr. Oh: Well, I was working at an export company, and they sent me over here in 1970 for market exploration. That’s why I settled down here. So I don’t know the hardships of immigrants in America because I got paid by my employer. 

How were your work and life experiences in America? 

Mr. Oh: At that time, Korea was not known to America. I was traveling quite a bit all over America. I couldn’t understand what they were talking about. [One time], I tried to get a contract when I was working for a wig company — a hairpiece company. The [company owners] were talking to each other about whether we should open escrow and if we should open a lot of trade. What if they just get the money and don’t ship the merchandise? Then what can we do? One guy said, ‘We’ll just beat him up.’ There were those kinds of situations.

What was it like to blend into Korean culture outside of work?

Mrs. Oh: Well, he [referring to Mr. Oh] had a friend — a Korean friend. So in the first year, we mingled with them. But later, he quit that job and worked as a real estate agent for a while.

Where was the first place you lived in America? Was it Koreatown?

Mr. Oh: Well, I came to America and landed in San Francisco. At that time, Korea was in a bad situation with American dollars. As a businessperson, I came to America, and [the employers] allowed only $100 for travel expenses. So it was very tough until they sent me a check. When I got my own money of a couple hundred dollars, it lasted just about 15 days, and in less than one month, my money was gone. So I got a job as a busboy for a couple of days. After that, I called a Korean collector and explained my situation to them. And my boss told me, ‘Hey, go to L.A. [You] will have some connections [there]. Meet them, and they will help you out.’ After that, my com- pany sent me around $50,000 or something to set up a branch office. That’s how it all started. At that time, Korea was a very poor country.

Were you the owner of your branch in Los Angeles?

Mrs. Oh: He was the employee, not the owner.

How was that? Did that make your lifestyle easier once you came to Los Angeles?

Mr. Oh: After I came to L.A., I could maintain the lifestyle I was used to in Korea. Whenever I went to restaurants, you know, I could pay the tip. That’s the kind of lifestyle I had, not any type of hardship. Every day I was working
and trying to explore the market, and it was very successful within months. I could open a letter of credit to my head office, and my business was not bad in L.A. So life was kind of smooth, but it was not my money. It was my employer’s money.

Are you still working now, or have you retired?

Mr. Oh: I’m retired. 

Mrs. Oh: He is almost 82. 

Mr. Oh: I spent 50 years working in America. Well, I used to be a business broker for quite a long time — around 25 years — and a stockbroker for around 14 years or something like that. Eventually, I got better long-term jobs, and my initial job as a representative of a Korean manufacturer lasted around seven years in total — maybe less than that.

What do you spend most of your time doing now? Are you involved with any community organizations? 

Mr. Oh: No, no, no, because I have a handicap. First of all, I cannot understand well when people speak. So well, I stay home. I have a couple of hobbies, for example, saxophone and reading novels — that’s the kind of thing I’m doing.

That’s amazing that you’re playing the saxophone. My grandpa plays it too. How were your experiences with COVID-19?

Mrs. Oh: Well, we used to take care of our grandkids. The reason we moved to the Bay Area from L.A. is that we have young grandkids, so we moved here and took care of them for about two years or more than that, like four years. Then COVID hit, so [we] stopped taking care of them and stayed home. And we go to the market once in a while, but we try to stay home. So I think, you know, we were sort of lucky. You know, we didn’t have to go to work [during the COVID lockdown].

Were there any good parts of your pandemic experience? And were there any bad parts of having experienced COVID-19?

Mrs. Oh: No. We missed the kids so much because they were like 5 and 7 years old, but, you know, we are retired. We have a small condominium, and we just stayed home as much as possible. So we were kind of lucky because we are old. If we had to go to work and [possibly] lose our jobs, then it would be terrible. But yeah, we are retirees, so we are just managing.

I was also wondering what you or Mr. Oh thought about eldercare in America.

Mrs. Oh: Socially, we are not getting any help. We just take care of ourselves. We saved very hard — not a lot, but enough to manage ourselves. We have our own small places. Everybody has hardships, but we were, I think, the luckier ones.

Is eldercare here very different from your experience in Korea, or was it fairly similar?

Mrs. Oh: Well, we left home very early, and the culture here in Korea and America is quite different. All of our kids were born here, so they have their lives here. They grew up, and again, one is married and one is not married — but they don’t work. So we just see each other. I took care of the kids for a while. It’s quite different. In Korea, I see on YouTube that they have all kinds of problems with the in-laws and things like that, but we don’t. So there’s good and bad, but nobody is really poking at us. You should watch YouTube! They have such a problem with in-laws and things like that. It’s ridiculous.