I first learned about seon (matchmaking) blind dates through my best friend from college who is Korean and whose parents set her up on several of these dates. She later married a great guy she met at a bar, on her own, and her parents couldn’t be happier. While most seon dates are between college and post-collegiate couples, I thought it would be fun to set a YA novel within this traditional dating structure. However, in setting the seon practice in high school, as an author of fiction, I’ve taken some liberties with this practice. The story is not meant to be representative of the South Korean or Korean-American experience with a matchmaker, but a lighthearted romantic comedy set in a culture I am lucky enough to feel part of through my friends and family. Any mistakes or misunderstandings in the text are mine alone.
My dear sister-in-law, Christina Jiyoung Hwang, inspired this novel due to her own personal history of immigrating to the United States from South Korea, alone, as an international student when she was just a freshman in high school. Christina has been a sounding board and an enthusiastic supporter of this novel from the beginning, and I thank her for her generosity, good humor and keen eye for inconsistencies.