A childhood spark
Every time I read a dazzling article in a magazine as a middle schooler, two words always caught my eye next to the author’s name: Freelance Writer.
Those words twinkled like stars in my teenage heart.
So I did what a dreamy twelve-year-old would do. I declared my dream to my mom.
“Mom, I’m going to be a freelance writer!”
My no-nonsense, Type-A mom didn’t hesitate.
“You think just anyone will publish your writing? Even freelancers have to be famous.”
Her words stung. They planted a quiet doubt that followed me for decades.
Was she right? Could you only be a freelance writer if you were already someone?
That question stayed with me — growing older, sharper, and slightly rebellious — all the way into my forties.
A not-so-famous journey
In the forty years it took me to get here, I’ve published outside my own blog exactly four times.
Mom was right in one sense: my words didn’t land just anywhere.
And yet, two of my essays did find their way into the world — winning a category-level award in 2023 and a grand prize in 2024 at startup-run essay contests.
Still, every time I sat down to write, a familiar voice whispered:You’re not famous. You’re not even that special.
For years, that voice almost stopped me.
But somewhere along the way — perhaps simply by aging — I learned something quieter and truer:
Some stories insist on being told, regardless of how ordinary the writer is.
And the longer you live, the harder it becomes to ignore them.
Looking Back at Gothenburg
It’s 2026.
More than ten years have passed since I quit my corporate job in Korea and landed in Gothenburg — Sweden’s second city — to pursue a master’s degree in social work.
No relatives. No friends. Just me, arriving in the so-called land of happiness.
Spoiler alert: it isn’t always happy.
Now, finally, I feel ready to tell those stories — the kind that only ripen with time.
Bare Scandic traces back to 2014, when I left my job in Korean film sales, a niche corner of overseas business, and arrived in Sweden in 2015.
From 2015 to 2018, I lived the life of a Swedish student.
In 2019, I returned as a summer traveler, just before the world shut down.
The absurd moments.
The quiet ones.
The things that only make sense years later.
They will unfold here, one episode at a time.
Freelance, famous or not
So, do you need fame to be a freelance writer?
It turns out you don’t.
You just need stories that refuse to let you go.
This is me — a Korean corporate dropout — diving headfirst into Sweden’s unfiltered reality.
Welcome to Bare Scandic.