My Side Of The Story: America

Being the naive kid I was, I had no idea what I was about to face. Damn. When I got off the plane I was in awe of the way people looked. I'd never seen a non-Asian person before. There aren't many of them in Korea.

In school, I was ahead of everybody in math. That's just the way it is-Korea is extremely strict with education and so I had learned math harder than my classmates. I couldn't speak English though, and that was a pain in the ass.

I grew accustomed to American culture very fast-much faster than the other immigrants. I quickly let go of the Korean lifestyle. My parents hated it-and to everyone else, well...I was just weird. Here I was, this little Korean girl, who could speak English but not too well. I was a strange mixture of both cultures. And neither side liked that. They didn't understand it.

There were a lot of playground fights. There were a lot of racial slurs made towards me. I didn't understand what it meant at first. I had no clue what "chink" meant, thought "ching chang chong" was a funny children's song, and that when kids pulled at the corners of their eyes that we were playing games. I had to observe, experience and learn more before I understood what the intentions behind those actions were.

If there's one thing you need to know about Korea is that the nation has a lot of pride. And just because I liked living in America better didn't mean my Korean pride was gone-it was embedded in me since I was born. I was still made to study, study and study. Get 'ahead' of everyone else. Bow down to my parents and adults, and I still ate with chopsticks.

Once I pulled a girl down while she was sitting on the monkey bars. She needed to get stitches and her parents confronted mine. I got 'disciplined' for 3 hours for that. My dad beat me for so long the rod broke. I couldn't walk afterwards cause I couldn't get up.

Needless to say that was the last time my parents ever found out about any of my fights. Me and some kids met another group of kids that we knew from school at the park. We ended up having a rock-fight, throwing small stones at each other and dodging them. One girl was pushed down a flight of stairs; another one was thrown off a spinning swing.

I didn't start all of the fights; but I wasn't always the victim either. I just didn't understand my feelings and was too immature to try to control them.

A week before we were supposed to leave for America, I got my hair permed. I had big curls-they told me in America all the girls have curly hair (yeah right) and this would help me "fit in".

When we got off the plane, the lady greeted us. I don't know what the fuck she was saying. I didn't even know she was talking to me until my dad nudged me.

"Soojin. She says your dress is very pretty."

"Huh? Oh, thank you."

That was the first time I'd spoken English to a white person. I still remember.

In Korea, they have a thing about outsiders. Using products made from outside the country is looked down upon. Basically it's very close-minded racism, but they call it being loyal to their country...being patriotic..."Korean Pride". Anti-Americanism is strong. They definitely do look down on other nations. With that kind of mentality installed in me, how do you think I'd react when someone I was taught was "an outsider" who was "below us" made racial slurs on me?

But I never got into trouble in school. My behavior was perfect, my marks were perfect, and there was absolutely no sign of me being anything other than an ideal role model.

Thank my parents for that! I can't imagine what they would've done if I wasn't. Even so, they wanted better. If I brought home a 98% on a test, they'd ask me what happened to the other 2%. If I was studying ahead and doing 4th grade math while in 3rd grade, they'd compare me to the neighbor's kid who was in 2nd grade and studying 5th grade math. When I got in trouble, it was rarely because of anything besides my education. Me studying any less than 2-3 hours a day upset them. And that was when I was 6. Imagine how hard the adults in Korea have to work.

It's to the point where it's common to see teens walking around with nosebleeds cause they've gone for so long without sleeping doing nothing but studying. Adults sometimes go for days without sleeping.

And then those violin lessons! Every single Korean kid we knew played some kind of instrument-and they couldn't have me falling behind. It's all a competition in Korea, and so I had to pick up that violin-and occasionally, the piano, but I always ended up going with the violin since it was cheaper and easier to carry around. I did pretty well. I did okay. But seeing as how every time I picked it up I wanted to break it, I obviously wasn't the star performer they wanted me to be. That got me in major trouble too. Major.

Even though I wouldn't admit it to anyone-or even myself, since I was taught that children were never supposed to have those feelings towards their parents (another Korean thing)-sometimes, I really did hate my parents. I found myself wishing they'd die.

Usual punishment for me if I didn't live up to their standards was caning. I had bruises all over my legs so often; once they beat me with a plastic golf club until it broke and then told me how they were "doing me a favor" by keeping it a secret from everyone else so that they wouldn't find out about "what a bad kid I was". And I actually thanked them.

Hilariously, though, my brother was never beaten to that extent. He got his little spankings, but he was never beaten the way I was.

But we'd have those nice vacations and trips during my elementary school days. Me, my dad, my stepmom and little brother would all pack, hop in the car and go on a road trip. We'd been to almost all 50 states plus Canada-all by car. My dad could drive, drive, drive. Even if there was a thunderstorm and we couldn't see shit, he'd still drive like it was nothing.

It was exciting at first...but I started to hate to 8-hour-long car rides and constantly staying at random hotels. Little did I know, that kind of instability and change was something I'd have to get used to.

You name it, I've been there. Yosemite falls, Yellowstone, Niagara Falls, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Nevada, Washington D.C., the White House, the Smithonian museums, Disney World...the list goes on and on.

But the most memorable trip was the one we took to the Grand Canyon when I was in 4th grade.

It was sunny and very hot; so we were wearing summer clothes. The plan was to hike down the Grand Canyon, and then hike back up that day. As we started to hike...we noticed that everyone else had brought along a lot of crap. Winter jackets, snow boots, sleeping bags, the works. I didn't get it-it was hot as a motherfucker-California weather! We had on tank tops, t-shirts, jeans, shorts...

A little later, it started to rain. We didn't think much of it. We took shelter for a bit, then continued on. It was gonna stop.

We went further down...and not only was the wind blowing around like mad, it was also hailing. Yes, hailing. How the hell did it go from extremely humid to hailing in one day?

We took shelter in a gazebo so that we wouldn't be pummeled by hail. We were about halfway down. We couldn't turn back now, or else all that walking would have been for nothing. So we kept going.

But then, it started to snow. Yes, SNOW. Everyone else had put on their winter clothing, but we weren't prepared. We were still wearing summer clothes in the fucking snow. When we were about 3/4 the way down, my little brother passed out. Dammit. It must have been too much for his 3-year-old body. That's when my dad carried his son on his back, and he took off his shirt and put it over my brother to keep him warm instead.

"This is ridiculous. We're going back to the hotel."

And so we did. We hiked up the Grand Canyon while it was not only snowing-but it seemed like more of a blizzard due to the very cold, extremely strong winds. I don't know how many times my stepmom pushed me against the canyon wall because she thought I was about the fly off the edge.

Did I mention we were wearing T-shirts, shorts, tank tops and jeans? And my dad was shirtless and carrying my brother on his back the whole way.

It's a wonder we didn't catch hypothermia-but then again, if there's one thing I know about my family is that we all have iron will. I thought I was gonna freeze to death-our clothes were already wet and they weren't doing much to warm us. All I knew was I had to get to that damn hotel and be warm as fast as I could. So I hiked and hiked and hiked.

You know what helped me the most? Singing songs in my head. I kept repeating songs about love, warmth, and all that crap to distract my mind from the cold my body was feeling. Soon, I just lost myself in the music. My brain was so immersed in the warmth in my music that it didn't really have time or room to recognize the freezing weather.

It seemed like forever, but we did get to the top and go back to the hotel. My little 8-year-old self got praised like shit. Apparently my parents thought I was gonna give up in the middle of it and lose to the cold. Hell no.

I didn't get at first why the weather changed so dramatically and suddenly, but then I learned it had something to do with altitudes and air pressure and crap. Since the Grand Canyon is built the way it is, the atmosphere there is unpredictable. Everyone else knew this and came prepared. We were the only ones who didn't know about it.

We did all get sick afterwards, though.

After 2 years in California, when I graduated 4th grade and was ready to move on to 5th, my dad got another new job. This time it was in New York. And guess how we got there? That's right-we drove. We drove from California to New York, spending an entire week and a half living in a car.