When I first started working full-time my parents knew that I would have trouble saving without a rigid plan in place. And so they asked me to join a kye.

The Korean kye, which means contract or bond, is a credit rotating system built on trust and honesty. It dates back hundreds of years when it was first used to pay official grain loans and military taxes. Since then, the kye has been transformed to finance small businesses, weddings, and funerals. These days, the kye is not only a financial function but a social one as well, where members meet every month to socialize, choose the winner, and celebrate.

A typical kye has fifteen members who contribute $500 every month. The winner of the jackpot (in this case, $500 x 15 = $7,500) may be determined by lottery or a group vote. The kye will continue until every member has won once, at which the group can choose to disband or start a new kye.

So what happens if someone wins the first one and runs off with the money? This very rarely happens, for two reasons: 1.) you only join kye‘s with people who you trust, and 2.) if you do, you will be a social outcast for the rest of your life. Everyone knows how much Koreans talk and gossip, and we all have families all over the world. Or we know someone who knows someone – unless you run away to remote place with no contact with your previous life, you will get caught and there will be consequences.

I’ve heard of million-dollar kye‘s in LA where people try to run off with the money and get caught. I’ve also heard of $50 kye‘s in Korea among high school girls who pool the money for plastic surgery.

What is in it for the last person to win? Being the last person to win is no different than just saving that money, right? Well, you can do it for social reasons. Or you can change the rules a bit so that the first person to win gets the least money, with the jackpot going up just a bit more each month (similar to an interest-based savings system). This is beneficial to those who need a quick loan (without credit checks or anything added into your credit history), as well as to those who want to earn some interest without the aid of a financial institution.

The kye that I’ve joined will enable me to accumulate enough money over time to pay for a down payment on a house or an apartment. I trust my parents and their friends, and without the money sitting in an account that is easily accessible, I really do think that this is a good financial plan for me, at least in the short run.

Growing up in Korea, I hated my given name, 효진 (Hyojin). I’m not sure exactly why, but it always felt a bit 촌스러워 (the closest definition I can think of is rustic, unrefined).

In addition, the name itself was unusual. I was named by my grandfather, who combined two Chinese characters, 효도할 효 (孝 – filial piety), and 배풀 진 (陳 – fulfill, exhibit), to form the name…a pretty ambitious name to say the least.

(Interesting tidbit: I didn’t find out until later that the second character is also a popular Chinese surname, Chen.)

I envied the girls with the pretty/cute and more common names like 유리 (Yuri) and 소원 (Sowon). Maybe it’s because they were the prettiest, most popular girls I knew? Perhaps my desire to fit in with the crowd manifested itself in my wanting a prettier, more common name.

My English name, Jenny, was actually given to me by a school secretary. When first registering for school after we moved to the states, the secretary had a hell of a time trying to pronounce my sister and my names. After butchering our verbal identities many times over, she said, “Well, I’ll call you Jenny and I’ll call you Suzy.”

I never really liked Jenny either – it’s way too common. But many people have told me that it suits me. Does this mean that I’m a common, ordinary girl?

Due to the prevalence of the name Jenny and my increasing age (thus the pressure to act like an adult and be more professional), I’ve started to use my Korean name more often in the past few years. Some have commented that it sounds pretty. I always shrugged them off, based on my preconceptions.

But one night battling insomnia, I said my name to myself and listened with a stranger’s ear. And it was pretty! At other points along the way, I found out that my name isn’t as uncommon as I had previously thought, with even two Korean celebrities sharing the name.

All was well until a friend told me that in Chinese, Hyojin is a boy’s name. I confronted my mother about this, and she replied, “Oh, didn’t you know? Everyone thought you were going to be a boy before you were born. And until you started growing hair, everyone thought you were a boy. Hyojin is a boy’s name.”

Dammit.