Joanna and Chip Gaines' Oldest Daughter Started Taking Korean Classes After Inspirational Family Trip to Seoul

The design experts, who share five children together, took a family trip to South Korea in April 2023

Joanna and Chip Gaines' daughter Ella is learning a new language and embracing her mother's heritage.

In the cover story of Magnolia Journal’s spring 2024 issue, Joanna, 45, revealed that the oldest of her five children is learning Korean after the family took a trip to Seoul last year. (Magnolia Journal is published by PEOPLE's parent company, Dotdash Meredith.)

"Ella, our oldest daughter, was so inspired by this whole trip that when we returned home, she started classes to learn Korean," the proud mom wrote alongside a photograph of her kids dressed in traditional Korean clothing at a spot in the capital city.

Along with Ella, Joanna and Chip, 49, are also parents to sons Drake, 19, Duke, 15, and Crew, 5, plus daughter Emmie, 14.

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Related: Joanna Gaines’ Mom Spent Months Trying to Track Down Sister She Hadn't Seen in ‘Decades’ — and Found Her!

Joanna and her family took their trip to Seoul in April 2023. In the Magnolia Journal issue, the Fixer Upper: Welcome Home star said it was husband Chip's idea to go on the trip after they had pushed the idea off "because of time, or calendars, or kids and work and time and calendars."

Along with their five kids, the couple also persuaded 24 of Joanna’s family members to embark on the journey with them — including her dad, her two sisters, her uncles and her cousins.

Joanna recalled in the spring 2024 issue that seeing cherry blossoms in “full bloom” and visiting food markets were among some of the highlights of the trip for her.

She also said that getting to see her kids embrace her culture was an experience like no other. "We all tried on the traditional Korean dress together — it felt like we stepped into a different time," she wrote. "The kids loved exploring while the adults sat back and drank tea together."

Joanna also revealed in the issue that her mom Nan spent months trying to track down the sister she left behind in South Korea ahead of the family's big trip.

“My mom spent those months trying to contact her sister, who she hadn’t seen in decades,” Joanna said. “The many years proved impossible to wade through. Number systems in South Korea had changed, making the number my mom had scribbled in her phone book useless.”

She added that by the time the family was boarding their flight and ready to take off, her mom was still searching for her sister. Things changed once they landed in Seoul, though. “A few days after we arrived, an old family friend was able to track down my aunt. My mom met up with her in the lobby of our hotel, and we all got to watch them embrace in that hard-to-explain way where it feels like a lifetime has passed but also no time at all,” the mother of five wrote.

Joanna added that everyone “had tears in our eyes, witnessing that missing part of my mom be found and restored.” Her aunt later joined in on all the activities that the group had planned during the rest of their trip.

Related: Joanna Gaines Is Visiting South Korea After Opening Up About Her Difficult Path to Embracing Her Heritage

In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE in November 2022, Joanna revealed that being teased as a child led her to hide her roots for years.

"It was deeply personal because that was half of my story," the design expert said at the time. "I realized if this isn't accepted, maybe I need to hide it and play more into the other side of who I am."

Through writing her memoir, The Stories We Tell, Joanna said she has since been fully embracing her heritage and passing it along to her five kids. "My Korean heritage is one of the things I’m most proud of. I’m trying to make up for that lost time – the culture is just so beautiful. I think discovering who you are and what you were made to do is a lifelong journey," she told PEOPLE.

To read the full cover story, visit magnolia.com and pick up a copy of Magnolia Journal’s Spring 2024 issue out on newsstands on Friday, Feb. 23.

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