[제 2회 드림에세이 수상작] Karen Lee - 'The Promise '
In the quiet town of Chung Joo, Korea, in 1935, a misfortunate event was unraveling with the summer‘s heat. “Daichi!” Mr. Nakazawa yelled. Daichi was getting ready to leave school, when he noticed his friend, who was also Korean, being bullied by a fellow Japanese student. Angered by the harassment being observed, he quickly made his way toward the scene, and was determined to stop the bullying that was familiar. Daichi releasing all his anger, and frustration punched the harasser, and screamed, “Stop! Why can’t you just leave him alone?” Just as Daichi had swung, a military officer who was hired as a guidance teacher, only caught a glimpse of Daichi hitting his fellow schoolmate. Even without trying to understand the situation, the teacher had quickly made his way over to the scene as well, automatically ready to take the Japanese student’s side. “Daichi!” Mr. Nakazawa yelled. Daichi, was getting ready to explain how he didn’t start the brawl, but before he had a chance, he felt a hard, painful slap across the left side of his head. Soon after, another slap equally as agonizing came across his right side. He was hit enough times to fall to the floor. Just before he lay unconscious, Daichi could have sworn he heard his teacher smirk, “We don’t need Korean bullies on this campus.” But that teacher had gotten the whole scenario wrong. Unable to gain back strength for three days, Daichi’s mother decided to call in the town’s acupuncturist to aide her son back to normal health. He was prescribed some Korean herbs, for his injuries, but everyone knew he should have been taken to a hospital. Why hadn’t he? Because if Daichi’s father found out, Daichi’s mother thought she would have been blamed for not taking care of him, the eldest son. Eventually, after a week on medication, Daichi was able to stand and walk on his own like before, but soon he began to notice something off about his hearing. When he tried to explain the problem to his mom, she wanted to believe everything was okay, so she just excused the warning. No one knew that, that decision would affect my grandfather ‘Daichi‘, my father, and even my brother and I. When my father, Lee Kyung Min, was in middle school, my grandfather’s hearing had become tremendously worse. Parent teacher conferences were mandatory, and my dad would hate when it came time for a conference. Because my grandmother had immigrated to America first, my grandfather was the alternate in attending the conferences. My father wasn’t ashamed of my grandfather, but didn’t enjoy the communication barrier that always arose. Whenever the teacher made a comment about the progress my father had been making, my grandfather would always need it to be repeated more than once. Pretty soon after, my father told my grandfather that parent teacher conferences weren‘t in existence, and told his teacher that his dad had joined his mother in America, and that soon the whole family would be moving as well. Being a teenager, my father yearned for a relationship with his dad, where he could share emotional and personal aspects of his life, but was deprived from such experiences. It was hard to communicate with his father, especially because during that time, hearing aides were not advanced and conversations would always require shouting. My father grew up thinking, it was easier to just provide space from his father, but promised himself, that he would never let communication problems become an issue with his future kids to come. At eighteen years old, my father had to move to America. Being the only son, it was his responsibility to work and take care of his sisters when his parents were busy. The living my grandparents were earning, was not sufficient enough to provide for a family of six, therefore my father had to take on two jobs, even as a full time student. His age also forbade my father to enroll in high school as a senior, therefore had to attend a community college for two years. These challenges didn’t stop my dad from achieving goals, my father received the grades to get into University of Southern California (USC), he was about to make America the land of his dreams. But pretty soon, with all the work my father was put up to, he couldn’t continue to attend the university. Instead, he paid for his younger sister’s tuition for her choice of a college, and all the living expenses, therefore never had an opportunity to practice and become familiar with the English language. A few years later, my father met my mother, and together they decided to start up their first business. Conforming with the other ’new’ Americans, they were determined to not only settle with one business, but looked forward to climbing up the business ladder and gaining better opportunities each time. Some years after, my parents were married, and after the success of their first business, they made the decision to start their family. My brother was born first, then I. From a young age, we weren’t used to our father being home often, and were usually shown love through money. By the time my brother and I were in middle school, it was clear that our father had forgotten the promise he had made to himself when he was our age. Whenever we had parent teacher conferences, my mother would always be the one to meet our teachers, because she moved to America as a early junior high school student, and had no problems with English. We too, were never embarrassed of our father, but there always seemed to be a barrier that had stopped us from communicating with each other. Then one horrible year had hit our family: my father’s business he had currently held was being taken away from him. My fathers stayed home more often during that period, and this was the turning point in our relationship with our dad. My father was the successful business man, where financially supporting his children was his strongest point. He always had an excuse not to communicate with us, but that excuse had disappeared. Although the business failed, it was also a blessing in the sense that we had more opportunities to associate with my father, and we really had a chance to get to know one another. At first, my father’s generation was an unfamiliar one because of the lack of communication. I always wondered why there was difficulty and hardship between our languages. But today, my father takes English lessons, and doesn’t hesitate in asking my brother and I for a new English word everyday. The fact that my father strives to learn the language in order to grow closer to us, really is a blessing. At the same time, experiencing such a life changing event caused my brother and I to be more curious about my father’s background as well. Never being expected to speak or know Korean, my brother and I never took interest in the culture. But as time progressed, the background that made our father, became more crucial than ever. We all knew, that our future goal was for my father to become fluent in English while being involved in my brother and my life, and for us to learn Korean until it has become natural. The immigrant generation my father is from, most likely looks for financial success, yet our family was different. We learned that modesty was key. It was established that in order to truly succeed, sacrifice was needed. Now I know definitely, that my father never forgot the promise he had made, just needed to be reminded of it. America has proved itself to be the true land of opportunities, and helped achieved goals and dreams that were never imaginable. The country had broken the generational curse, and has continued to satisfy. Living in America has been tough, yet unbelievable. Many memories, and history were made.
