
				My Brilliant Korea

Profile: Blythe Seinor

When Blythe was a journalism student at the Queensland University of Technology she interviewed the former Indonesian president, Abdurrahman Wahid.

Mr Wahid fell asleep during the interview. He was, literally, out cold.

Blythe should have seen it coming. For several minutes Mr Wahid's head had been dropping further and further forward, until... thump. It hit the desk.

On the desk was where Mr Wahid's head stayed for at least 90 seconds until, suddenly, he startled himself awake.

"Repeat question, too long!" he barked at Blythe.

Some people might have been disheartened by the experience. Blythe was. Some might have decided journalism was not for them. Blythe did. So when she finished university, Blythe flew to New Zealand and lived in a van for the next six months. She picked fruit and vegetables, painted a house, taught English to foreign students and even installed a bathtub. One day, when Blythe was at the top of an apple tree, she realised she still wanted to be a journalist. She went home to Australia and found herself a job in Lismore, just near Byron Bay.

For the next six years Blythe worked as a journalist- first in radio, then in television and finally in print. Blythe went to car accidents, covered court trials, interviewed celebrities and pestered politicians. She loved working as a journalist and took it seriously. Sometimes too seriously. She took her work home with her. Sometimes her work kept her awake at night. Blythe was concerned that she had forgotten how to have fun. She worried that, at 28 years old, she had begun to act like someone much older.

So one day, Blythe left to see some of the world. She accepted a job teaching English in Seoul, South Korea, where she lived for the next year and a half. She left Seoul in February 2011, but returned to Korea for the love of an Englishman. She now works at a university, teaching journalism and writing for the web. Korea, for Blythe, is still brilliant.