Maryam You Narae: Why Were They Looking Forward to Fasting?
What caught You Narae’s attention during Ramadan in 2019 was the happiness of people preparing to fast. Ryzal and his Muslim friends were eagerly awaiting a month without daytime food. Why look forward to being hungry? In her 2020 Sinar Harian interview, she explained that the question led her to ask about fasting and then try it herself. [2]
Her earlier life in Ansan, South Korea, centred on work and helping her mother. She told Wolipop that they sold walnut cakes at a subway station and that the long hours exhausted her. She later became a hospital physiotherapist, while still occasionally helping at the shop. There she met Ryzal, a Malaysian student who proposed a language exchange: he would teach her English and she would teach him Korean. Their conversations gradually extended beyond language to personal life and religion. [1]
Her curiosity did not stop with food. Ryzal’s family visited Korea in June 2019. He told Wolipop that their efforts to find places to pray while travelling, and her seeing his mother praying in the morning, deepened her interest in Islam. She was encountering worship through people’s ordinary routines and asking what those actions meant. [1]
According to Ryzal’s interview, they visited Itaewon Mosque in Seoul on 10 July. The imam asked her to read about Islam and its pillars of faith and practice before making her declaration before him. They returned the following day. On 11 July 2019, she pronounced the testimony of faith before the imam; Maryam became part of her public identity. [1][2]
Maryam told Sinar Harian that her mother supported her choice and was glad to see her happy. She married Ryzal in August 2019. Others found the changes harder to understand. Friends questioned her about the headscarf, food and alcohol, subjects that were now becoming part of her own daily decisions. [2]
In her 2020 account, she described the difficulty of declining hospital staff dinners when the available food did not fit her religious requirements. Refusing could appear discourteous to colleagues or at odds with local customs, which made her uncomfortable. Her home was close enough to work for her to pray there, and she prayed with her husband in the evenings. [2]
In 2024 she recalled fasting in Korea and being offered food by colleagues who did not understand why she was abstaining. She said she explained and removed food from her mouth without swallowing it. She understood their behaviour as affection combined with unfamiliarity with fasting. Learning also meant finding ways to explain her choices to people around her. [3]
At the close of the 2020 interview, she advised people considering Islam to approach the journey sincerely and honestly, while acknowledging its difficulties. A question about the joy of fasting had led into reading, prayer, food and everyday relationships. Discovering a faith was followed by the continuing task of learning how to live it. [2]