The district of Gangnam is unlike any other in the city of Seoul.

Dozens of beaming lights brightening up the dark skies can be seen by anyone lucky enough to be spending their night in its streets. The roads are bustling with excited tourists and locals alike who are enthusiastic to be able to take part of the famed night-life of Seoul, and in one of its richest districts.

One of these people included a fair skinned Thai girl who had recently - earlier on this day - dyed her brown hair into beautiful blonde locks and tried on the most beautiful and expensive looking clothes that her tiny budget could allow. She was wearing a white blouse tucked into a contemporary black skirt that nowadays many girls were trending, and black pumps that she borrowed from her good friend, Jennie Kim. In the bitter, night cold that South Korea experiences in late October, the said girl would usually have been wearing tights to keep herself warm but today she ditched her saviours and walked around with her bare legs showing- an action that her mom would surely have scolded her for if she knew.

This girl is named Lalisa Manoban, well, this isn’t her Thai name but for the sake of the readers and myself, as it is a name difficult to read and spell alike for those who aren’t native to Thailand, she will go by Lisa. Those familiar with this extraordinary personality might say it’s a simple name for an extravagant girl, but despair not, for even this name is extravagant to locals of the city that she lives in.

Lisa would like to be able to claim that she lives in the Gangnam district, which she does, but every time someone asks her where she lives, she just hesitantly smiles and says Seoul, which once again, is entirely true. So why the reluctance? Well, although she might like to say that she is proud of where she lives, Lisa’s home is in the worst region of the Gangnam District. Not the worst in terms of poverty, though most people do not have the luxury to have more than three simple meals per day which is nothing compared to the wealthy in Gangnam, but the worst in crime and violence.

Where she lives, it is a danger to even go out on the streets alone after 8pm and if you even dare to look at others while you are out shopping or getting somewhere, even in broad daylight, you will often see that those who in any other city might have seemed to be having a friendly chat are actually exchanging drugs and money.

This region is the black sheep of the district and Lisa, although she denies this, is completely and utterly embarrassed.

Lisa’s dream in life is to get rich and live in the centre of Gangnam. The skyscrapers she can view from her bedroom window are the places she wants to be able to walk amongst, and compared to her financial stability, or lack thereof, the person she is meeting is completely and filthy rich.

In front of her lies an Italian restaurant that Lisa would never have dared to enter unt