American Cullen Thomas was young and disinclined to accept hardship when he went to Korea in 1993 to teach English. He ended up spending the next three and half years in prison for trying to smuggle hashish into the country. In this evocative and powerful memoir, Cullen describes how he struggled to cope with the prevalent Confucian culture, the strict rules of Korean prisons and living amongst some hard-boiled inmates, and how he eventually found within himself a lasting sense of freedom and gratitude - for the men he had come to know, for the trial he had passed through and even for Korea itself.