About Bobae

Bobae (보배) means treasure or gem in Korean. I believe that a part of life’s joy is finding people, things, and experiences that are meaningful to you, and treasuring them. While there’s no obligation to explain or justify why, when you find something you enjoy very much, you can’t help but want to share it with more people. That’s why I created project Bobae.

To the extent this is my Bobae, I owe my taste and sensibility to my mom and dad. Dad taught me that there’s tremendous value in taking one’s time (immense amounts of time) to find just the right one – a pair of shoes, a pen, or a camera – and that there’s joy in taking care of that object like it belongs in a museum. In fact, Dad cared so much that most things he acquired hardly touched the ground again. His affection and appreciation were intensely private and bordered on reverence, built around careful maintenance and admiration.

My mom, on the other hand, knew how to enjoy things in the moment. She took me everywhere around Seoul, from her yoga classes and the tailor appointments to delivering freshly baked pies to my uncle’s cafe. On these excursions, I looked forward to the kind of stretching my youthful muscles didn’t yet appreciate but now a blueprint for how I care for my body today; the piping hot donuts at the subway stations, fresh out of the oven and generously sprinkled with cinnamon sugar; and the piles of fabric swatches I got to dig through while Mom got her business done.

Their respective relationships with things, people, and joy couldn’t have been more different, but they both let me along for the ride. I am now someone who can stay patient when hunting for the right vintage bag for me (but impatient in every other aspect of life), who will lovingly take care of it, and get as much joy carrying it around town. I’ve learned that you can have both the private and public versions of joy, and that there’s beauty in the marks, stains, and the imperfection that build up with use. All of that makes the object, and my experience with it, mine.