I ended up printing out a picture of an Irish friendship ring. Even while I was presenting it, it just felt like a total lie because I had no connection to it. I just wanted the assignment to be over. She managed to meet her family on a three-day layover in South Korea, on the way back to the US from Guam on a research trip.
In Korea, folktales don't begin with "Once upon a time." They begin, "Back when tigers used to smoke"-a phrase invoking an impossibly distant past when anything could happen. The phrase comes to life the moment you step inside the 1820s former farmhouse in New York's historic Hudson Valley that interior designer Young Huh calls home. Open the door and sure enough there's a classic center hall with wide-plank floors and a stair with a polished wood banister.