I immigrated to the U.S. during the pandemic, I spent my first one or two years unproductively and depressing, feeling like my youth was slipping away without meaning. In Korea, people often say, “Youth is your greatest weapon,” yet mine felt like it was wasting away. That’s when I began to use fruit as a metaphor. Fruit begins fresh and full of life, but eventually it rots and disappears. In that cycle, I saw myself, and I saw the identity of an immigrant.

Among them, pomegranates, figs, and dragon fruit stood out to me. These fruits were uncommon in Korea, and their foreignness resonated with me as a stranger living in a new land. The pomegranate’s red seeds symbolized both fragmented individuals and human society as a whole.