Minjok

“Patriotism is, fundamentally,

 a conviction that a particular country is the best in the world because you were born in it....”

-George Bernard Shaw

Not so long ago, I believed the concept of Minjok as a cultural community. Since my earliest childhood, I was taught that a person who shares same culture as me is Han (Korean) Minjok, so I thought that all Korean can be defined as our Minjok. However, I was little bit concerned when I saw foreign people with different appearance compared to “normal Koreans”, speaking Korean and proving themselves to have Korean nationality. I questioned myself, “Can they be defined as our Minjok?”

Well, despite the fact that I was too young to understand what Minjok means, Minjok actually has a very vague meaning. Commonly, Minjok is translated into nation; according to the dictionary, nation can be referred to group of people who shares unity among them. This unity includes culture, territory, the language, the history, beliefs, and the race. However, this classification is so obscure. Can we say that Jews are same Minjok even though they haven’t lived in same territory for several thousands of years? Most of Jews are living in different country, accepting the cultural values of the places. Also, can we say a person who shares a language as a same Minjok? For example, there are about 8000 languages on the world. However, people were able to only define 200 distinctive Minjok among the world. In different analogy, the people of Switzerland have 4 official languages, but they are defined as single Minjok.

Well, what is Han Minjok then? Do they even exist?

The fact is that, Minjok doesn’t really exist anywhere. This means, that there is no physical division between people that make “that people A Minjok”, or “that people B Minjok”. It is believed that Minjok is a concept that exists just in people’s mind. Benedict Anderson, pioneer of this thinking, had said that Minjok is just an “imagined community”. He explained that Minjok is only imagined by people as a community; this means that people interacting with same type of culture, education, history and etc. starts to think that they have a strong bond between them, and call themselves same Minjok.

A book called “Nationalism (민족주의-by 장문석)” said that all cultural traditions are created for political purposes. According to the readings, the concept of Minjok is often used to make people concentrate on an idea. For example, we are always taught that South Korea and North Korea should unite. Many pamphlets, books, songs, newspapers, and especially education, says that we have to unite because we are Han Minjok. But, what is Han Minjok? It had already been divided into different countries for 50 years, and also, remember that just about 20 years ago, South Koreans have always despised North Koreans because they had different ideology. Then, why do Korean call for united Minjok so suddenly? This is great example of how Minjok-Making (idea injection) done by the society affects people into think in a way. Because the society created all the cultural traditions to make people concentrate on “Uniting Korea”, people now believe, that their Minjok’s ultimate mission is to do that.  

According to Anderson’s book, Minjok is an imagined community. A Minjok comes to existence after injection of ideas through education. First of all, a person, who is born in a society or country, is made to have “Same Minjok Identity” to fit the need of society. The person is forced to adopt ideology and values of the society, thus becoming part of the Minjok. Then later on, this person repeats all these steps to other new born person. And, these people, who are made to be the Minjok, are ready to be used as the part of society.

To describe the term in an extreme way, Minjok is “created” for this particular reason: to manage mass of people efficiently, and to unite them. Speaking more seriously, Minjok is only a tool. Minjok itself is not a bad concept. Normally Minjok can grant the society more stability, better development, and social cohesion. Even though it is a tool, normally, Minjok only acts like a lubricant for society to run fluently. However, when concept of nation develops into nationalism, it becomes a real devastating tool.

Nationalism can be simply defined as “Only for our Minjok’s sake”. This extreme case of Minjok, however, acts as biggest weapon when some madness is put into them. Development of the word “nation” is deeply related with nationalism movement happened during early 20^th century. Until the late 19^th century, not many people knew the word nation; because the word hasn’t been utilized for the word we know it now. However, for some reason, it had suddenly appeared on the history of human race with cruelty, called the nationalism. World couldn’t stop themselves in 19^th~20^th century. Countries fought for more land, causing wars, genocide, and lunacy. Imperialism prospered, and many countries were colonized. However, one important thing was missing. It was the motivation or the will of the normal people to colonize, or cause war against other countries and fight for the country’s wealth. There was no need for the individuals of the country to sacrifice their life to make the country bigger, and prosperous, because their life was already in misery, and it was their priority to make themselves a better life. As a result, ruler of each country came up with concept of nationalism.'

It is already mentioned in the beginning that “all cultural traditions are created for political purposes”. The proof of this sentence can be found in European history during this age. Many European countries started creating traditions for their own country, such as flag, national anthem, memorials, myths and Heros. These kinds of man-made traditions created national sentiment, thus creating many different Minjok ready to be utilized.

The prominent example is Hitler. Hitler can be explained as a one who first carries out a genocide using a tool called “Minjok”. Holocaust, mass killing of Gipsy, and World War II all originated from this same idea, nationalism. The rise of German nationalism was mainly due to devastated country after World War I. After the World War I, only thing left on the land was despair. However, in this moment of despair, there came their ruler: Hitler. After Hitler got control over Germany with Nazi, he had modified the cultural, historical, racial and ethical sense of Germans. He announced that the race of German, the Arians, is the best among all others. Also, the education toward public all changed. The result was terrible. Only in several years, Minjok of German had changed into a Minjok which Hitler wanted to make. After that, he utilized this Minjok as a tool to fulfill what he wanted. This, in fact, showed how easily and how madly a concept of Minjok and nationalism can turn into.

The meaning of Minjok was defined above. Then, coming back to the beginning, can this question be answered now? “What is Han Minjok?”

During the early 20^th century, Japan colonized most of Asian countries. They were famous for their cruelty, inhumanity, and exploitation. Korea was threatened the most, for the strong national sentiment and resistance. As a result, Japan started a policy to turn Han Minjok into Japan Minjok. Why? It is because if it was successful, they would be able to kill the national consciousness of Han Minjok which was last thing left as a Korean. In contrast, the secret leaders of Korea knew that national consciousness was last thing left that makes Korean exist, so they worked hard to keep this. They created flag, newspapers, national anthem, as well as hero such as Lee Soon Shin in order to keep this from collapsing. Because, collapse of 民族意識(national consciousness) meant that existence of Korean culture, history, and language would extinct, giving Japan better control over whole nation. However, in reality, many people chose to change their mind, becoming informer of Japan. This was because there was much more benefit of being obedient to invaders than resisting them. This proves that, Minjok can be created by people, but also that people can choose to change Minjok.

a flag that should never be used again..

Actually, it is so ironic that a concept that Korean people protected with life actually came from Japan. Many people believe that the word Minjok existed since long ago. This is possible, because Koreans named themselves Han Minjok, and made themselves to exist since 3000 B.C. However, the word Minjok originated from Japanese word “Minzoku”, around 1905 when interference of Japan incremented. So the truth is, that there wasn’t a term like Minjok before that, and also the history we know about Minjok was all written after that based on the real historic base, and also, some fiction. But the origin of word isn’t everything that was affected by Japan. Actually, it can be said that most part of Korean’s early Minjok spirit was partly or completely made by Japan.

How to destroy Minjok Spirit?

This is due to the 民族抹殺政策 (policy to obliterate Korean culture) done by Japan that Korean Minjok spirit partly contains Japanese ideas. It was pretty funny to find out that something Koreans believe to be the center of Han Minjok spirit was actually a tool for better ruling in Korea made by Japanese. This policy basically destroyed old Korean language, the tradition, the history, and beliefs. An example of wrong Minjok spirit passed down from Japan is the belief that “Korea is single nation state”. Originally, this idea was made by Japanese invaders, to make Koreans believe that Korean Minjok and Japan Minjok is the same nation. However, the origin of this idea was forgotten, and nowadays school teaches student how proud it is to be a part of single raced country. Proud of what? For being the only single raced country in the world, and thinking ourselves to be superior to other multi-raced countries? Where is the proof? Isn’t this similar to how Hitler persuaded Arian people? This idea is definitely remnant of Japanese colonization period. There are many more examples of how remnants of Japanese colonization period were assimilated other than this. This proves how Japan tried to use the Minjok spirit as a tool to control people, as well as trying to erase the original spirit of a nation.

Even after the colonization period ended, Korean had to face a new intrusion to their Minjok ideas, by the president Park. Park basically practiced what had happened as a nationalism movement before. He brainwashed the nation, so that whole country follows what he says. So, for another tens of years, Korean Minjok had to be used as a tool of political purpose.

Conclusively, it can be said that Han Minjok has not yet found their “Real self”. The basic elements that make Han Minjok, such as language, culture, history, and beliefs were always disguised or distorted by the either foreign power or internal power. So, Koreans do not have their own Identity. They have educational systems from Japan, territory set by the U.S and Soviet Union, history modified and distorted by China and Japan, language deeply affected by Japan and lastly, beliefs made by Japan Imperialism and dictators such as Park and Jeon.

Korean fighters for independence, Kim Goo had said “People who forget the history of their country has no future”. It will also apply for Minjok: “People who forget the identity of their nation has no future”. Koreans have lost their true identity in process of their Minjok being used by the supreme powers. Even now, the concept of Minjok is being used by politicians often, to raise their votes and later, for better control of the country. In the future, it will be the goal of Han Minjok to find their real Identity, and think outside the artificial fence made by the powers. Not in such a case, the concept of Minjok will still swing their power to control, and utilize people as a tool. The concept of Minjok will not disappear, unless the strong bond between people disappears. So, it is the future goal of people to change the purpose of Minjok: from the tool of the powers to the tool of people. 

As I conclude, Minjok is something that can be made, modified, or changed in the needs of people who are ruling them. It is not even that hard. Change in the culture, education, and history can do it, as well as making of new traditions. Minjok had been always changed so that it fits the need of people at the time, and it will change in the future. Our Minjok, Han, will change too. Even though I cannot see the future, I’m sure about one thing. In any way, there will be attempt to change the Minjok of Han, by giving changes to any of elements above. It is our goal, to resist this, for the sake of our real Minjok, and for the people who are included in it. 

WHAT IF: Human population increases to 14 billion?

As we know, there are about 7 billion people on the Earth. It is possibly the biggest number among the history of human race (unless there is other alien planets with human living on it), and the human growth rate is now drawing the most vertical graph among the history of human race. We still remember celebrating 6 billionth children in 1999. The problem is that we had to celebrate 7 billionth children just about 12years after that day. Can you imagine how big that number is? When we say it, it’s pretty easy; “Seven billion”: Only two words.

However, in reality, it’s not that simple.

1.     With seven billion coins, we can travel back and forth the moon only by stacking them.

2.     With seven billion dollars, we can build 7 Burj Khalifa building, the highest and fanciest building of the world.

3.     Seven billion second is equal to 221years.

4.     It is worth 1/10 of Bill Gates wealth.

5.     Lastly, it is the highest number of population the human race supposed to be. 

Recently, Earth has been showing symptoms of a serious disease. It is incurable, and the disease eats whole body in short amount of time. We call this disease “Human”.

Let’s finish silly part here. Today, I want to discuss this topic. “What if human race exceeds the amount of people it can hold?”

14billion is about the twice of current human population, and scientists guesses that we will go to reach this number around 22th century. However, I don’t think so. In 1999, not many people expected us to increase in one billion just in twelve years. Using the law of 70, and the current human population growth rate, I found out that human population would be doubled just in 60years, which will be 2071.

Increased population is extremely serious problem. Let me show several examples.

1.     Resource problem

To keep up twice the number of people, we need twice the number of all resources in order to fulfill their will. However, we know that we do not have enough food, water, and all other resources to do that. As a result, people will have to use 50~60% of resources they are using now; maybe, 70% in maximum. However, many people will not be satisfies with that. Then what would happen? I’m not sure. Maybe there would be a great world war, to get more resources, or a peaceful treaty to live with what we have.

2.     Work problem

Human is a “working animal”. No human can live without working, because they need to work in order to maintain themselves with sufficient resources. However, if we have 14 billion people in the world, do you think everyone can have a job to work? Even now, everywhere in the world is suffering from lack of workplace. For example, China is suffering the most from this problem. More than 60% of graduates find it hard to enter a job, and as a result, even a person with doctor’s degree had to work in mere dustman. Only possible solution is to divide each jobs so that people gets at least some money. However, it will significantly decrease people’s quality of life.

3.     Environmental problem

The landmass is limited. However, people need place to live. As a result, people will have to either develop a new piece of land, or fight to gain the existing land. For the first choice, I can say that we human already have utilized the maximum amount of land we can. If we have to develop, only choices left is the ice-field of Siberia, Sweltering desert around Africa, or dense forest of Amazon. In Siberia and Deserts, people will be able to live, but they would not be able to hope the quality of life over there. Also, for Amazon, developing this area will be like though penetrating through lung of Earth.  

Overlapping problems in each topic is that “The quality of life” will decrease significantly. With fewer resources, people will have to eat less, or starve. With damaged environment, people will have to fight for better place to live.

Twice the people will only result in misery. However, we are heading toward this tragedy step by step, without giving any solution. We all know what will happen after the tragedy. I hope the world chooses its best choice, so that I would not be suffering in my age of 70 or around. 

VISION TRIP:Top12 Funny Moments

"Squirrel and Chair"

"Angry Hosung"

"Hun's Best Smile"

"I Believe I can Fly"

"CAUTION: Nuclear Reactor in My House"

"What?"

"Close-Up"

"Out of Body Experience"

"Hey, I'm Serious"

"Sleepy.."

"Sleeping"

"I Don't Care"

"Knowledge is Power"

I think most of you are familiar with the term “Knowledge is Power”. I’m not really a mathematical guy, but every time I hear this quote, my brain automatically draws out this equation;

KNOWLEDGE = POWER

If this is true, then doesn't it also means that one other equation is true as well?

Power => Knowledge

So my fundamental question is, whether “Power is Knowledge” make sense. This idea first came to me after hearing the original quote from Mr. Menard’s class, and wanted to write about it ever since. So rather than wasting my time on internet, I decided to show my ideas to everyone who visits my blog.

1.  With more power, you can get more knowledge

What is considered as power these days? Ones that quickly come in to my mind are “military power”, and “economic power”. So if I say a country has a lot of power, it would mean that the country is wealthy, or has a strong army behind it. I think, that in either ways, having these powers will allow people to get more knowledge.

First of all, with more money, more can be invested into researches, thus making them more successful. Even though result of research dose not completely matters with amount of money invested, but it is true that a research with more money is more likely to succeed.

Also, having a strong army behind the country will give freedom of choice in researches. A country with lesser power will not be able to handle such a research like “Nuclear Reactions” due to objection of other strong countries.

Consequently, if a variety of researches can be held successfully with support of power, it can be said that “Power is Knowledge”.

Let’s discuss something other than researches. If you have more power as an individual, it will give you more access to information that cannot be treated by public. For example, if you become a US president, you will be able to know the secret about “Area 51”. Also, some information can be bought with money. If we can consider piece of information as knowledge, it again proves the above quote. 

2. Power is the proof of knowledge

In a different perspective, I think Power is the proof of having Knowledge. For a bigger power, more knowledge is required. For example, having a better weapon will require research for fiercer weapon. Also, having more knowledge about the world will allow people to earn more money.

TOEFL ESSAY #2

Who do you think is most famous person in the world? The 2011 Forbes research selected “Oprah Winfrey” as the most renowned person among the world, and another research mentioned “Barack Obama” as one. However, there is one person who is possibly known by almost everybody on Earth. Well, at least the world history is divided into two parts by his birth: B.C and A.D. Recently, people realized that it has already been two thousand years since his birth, and celebrated the start of “New Millennium” as well as start of “21th century”. Amongst all the things this new century brought, the biggest of all was change in people’s view toward the world. People were filled with hope, and their expectations about bright future were made. However, one the other hand, worries and fears rose.   

Start of 21th century brought people hopeful expectations about the future. This is mainly due to the fact that something believed to be impossible in 20th century was becoming a “reality” in 21th century; for example, it was impossible to even think about individuals owning computers just about forty years ago. But how is it now? Everyone’s got a computer that can basically connect you with everybody on Earth just with a click. Furthermore, no one expected medical technology to develop this much, thus making people healthier, as well as granting longer life. Lastly, the society has become a place where a person’s ability and idea isn’t considered by their background or education. Consequently, many innovated ideas were made, created, and applied to real life and made our life better. Due to success of these ideas, people started looking at the infinite possibilities of new age. What 21th century gave wasn’t something substantial, but it was the hope that something impossible will be achieved someday.

The problem was that fear and worries rose as 21th century continued. First, in return of technological growth, more severe disasters like “Katrina” occurred. But most disastrous of all, was the uncontrollable “nuclear energy”. We have been using the energy for tens of years, and it is possibly the most effective energy amongst all. So people poured money on developing this energy and built hundreds of nuclear power plants. Most people weren’t aware about the danger of nuclear energy until an incident happened in Fukushima, Japan: the power plant was destroyed, thus creating 8000km² of “deadly area” where no human can live. As a result, many people were alarmed about the fact that they were living right beside a nuclear bomb or something even worse. Secondly, lack of resources made people live under the fear of conflict and wars. Before, countries fought for their own safety, religious right, and people (more land). However, it seems only greed toward limited resources is left to motivate 21th century’s fight. As time goes by, these conflicts will never diminish, but only piles up.

21th century presented two contradicting ideas: hope and fear. In a sense, living in 21th century is like though living in a house where heaven and hell both exists. The upper floor indeed has a heaven-like environment where all people utilize new technologies and live a better life. In contrast, the lower floor is only a hell consisted of nuclear waste and bombing sound. At this moment, most people live in upper floor, not knowing what is happening downstairs. It wouldn’t be a huge problem if all these people manage to live in upper floor forever. However, the ground they are stepping on is so fragile; that one wrong step can possibly demolish the floor, consequently pulling everybody into hell. 

Nacirema? American? What is it?

My first encounter to “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” gave me an awful feeling, because Nacimera tribe sounded so odd to me. Possibly it was the oddest people I ever heard of. They were known to live in daily ritual practices, which sounded so barbaric, and so uncivilized to me. This ritual had tendencies to give pain to the devotee, for merely nothing. In fact, this masochistic tribe would not have any unharmed men after practicing all their rituals. Also, the fact that having baby is treated as taboo and secret made me think “How can this tribe still live up to date?” 

So at first, I doubt the existence of this exotic tribe. However, after knowing that the writer of this text was a famous anthropologist, I made myself into the trap. After that, I had full confidence in the information written in the text, and thus tried hard to understand a new tribe presented in “Body Ritual among the Nacirema”. Because I was taught from schools that I should embrace various cultures and religions throughout the world, I even took further step of try understanding Nacirema culture. It was kind of successful, and I was able to give off reasons why Nacirema people do each actions. 

The only problem was that the article contained a twist that would change whole viewpoint of reader, as well as the meaning it contains. But before talking about that, I want to introduce you another interesting tribe, called Naerok. 


[Naerok is a tribe that lives in the far edge of Eurasian continent, in an unnamed peninsula for more than several thousand years. However, this tribe isn’t well known to the public due to their tendency to exclude foreign culture. Still, their culture is well examined by some specialists who have deep interest in them.

According to the people, Naerok tribe has a highly competitive society. From their age of 6 or 7, most children from “Mangang”, the biggest village among all others, go through special trainings to become the best soldier. They basically live inside a barrack called “Nowgah”, and is only allowed to go back home for sleeping. Some children tend to go to better Nowgah, and some tends to be not. Well, this is really important to go to better Nowgah, because it connects directly to the better future.

When every Naerokians become twenty, they need to participate in a competition to become a real soldier of Naerok tribe. The “G-Nuenus” competition is held only once every year, and determines the rank of each soldier who is participating, comparison to each other. If the person gets lower rank, they would have to live a pity life or reapply for next year’s competition. If a person gets highest rank by defeating most people, he is allowed to get a title called “Rotcod”, and is admired by whole society. 

Generally, their culture is strange in comparison to our culture. Naerokians strongly believe that well rotten food is best for human body. Every time a foreigner comes to the village, they forcefully put a rotten cabbage called “Chimik” in their mouth to welcome him. Anyway, it is certain that at least one rotten food is consumed by single Naerokian every day. Also, Naerok has special admiration toward appearance of each individual, so being fat, as well as being ugly, is considered as a sin. So, almost all the women from the Naerokian tribe carve bone out from their face in order to create a special Naerokian face. This is why we can determine whether a women is Naerok or not, so easily.]


What do you realize about this short expository essay that introduces Naerokian tribe to you? The Naerok tribe sounds so barbaric and unhygienic that you might not want to encounter them in any circumstances. However, to tell the truth, we can encounter them really easily in Korea. Well, it is unavoidable to do so. This is because; Naerok is “Korean” spelled backward: Yes. This barbaric and unhygienic tribe is Koreans.

This writing was written in order to make people feel their culture in an unfamiliar ways. No Korean would suspect Naerok to be depicting their own doings. For example, well rotten food “Chimik”, which is loved by Naerok, is simply arranged version of “Kimchi”. Also, the article is intended to criticize Korea’s harsh education system by making analogy between education and military training. If you are quick enough to realize Nowgah is actually Hagwon, and the yearly Competition G-Nuenus is actually Su-Neung, you now realized that this essay is only a little fraud. This is the same trick that the article “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” has. It basically transforms American culture into something else, while keeping the essential characteristics hidden inside it. 

After I heard “Nacimera is American spelled backward”, whole translation of this article changed. First feeling I got was a great “shock”. “How couldn’t I realize it was fake?” I thought. In reality, it wasn’t intending to explain a brand-new tribe called “Nacirema”, but was intending to explain “American” in a different viewpoint. For example, the “holy mouth men” was actually dentist, and the action that I thought as barbaric was just exaggerated dental treatment. Also, Latipso, which I believed to be a torture chamber, was actually “Hospital”. Lastly, the part that explained about bizarre pregnancy of Nacirema tribe was just actually portraying contraception methods that people take nowadays. 

At this moment, I came up with a question: “Why did author write all this?” I know it’s an absurd question, but I think this is the most important thing to be determined with this text. The author demonstrated clever wit in arranging this writing, and completely tricked people into believing something wrong rather than getting the real meaning behind it. But why?

In my opinion, author intended to make people see their culture in different perspective, as well as making them criticize their own culture. I think what I felt while reading Nacirema is same as what people from other cultures think when they encounter new culture. Also, by criticizing this “barbaric and unhygienic” culture, people would know what their own civilization’s problem is. For example, Even though we “Naerok tribe” believe Kimchi to be the healthiest and most delicious food among all, what foreigners would see is a rotten cabbage that smells like hell. Well, this is same for other cultures: all cultures have something that seems strange to others. So, isn’t this article basically giving us the message that all culture can seem unnatural to the others, thus none is actually superior to others.
 

Introduction to TGIS method

Hello everyone. I’m writing this introduction in order to inform you that I’ll start something strange on this blog. Today, I just realized that my blog looks like a house which has been thrown out for several years. It is neither decorated nor filled up with any content, and it isn’t attractive to the others. So, I came up with a great (?) idea for future posts of my blog. I’m basically going to post outlines of short stories or novel that I made by myself. The only special thing is that this outline is made by using TGIS method.

What is TGIS method? It is a new method invented by me.

Recently, I have been thinking about topics for my writings, but couldn’t come up with something innovative. The main problem was that my idea was always at the same point; in other words; all the ideas somehow looked really similar to each other. Because of this, writing outlines of story started to be something tedious. So I thought for a long time, until I came up with a method of writing that would give me interest back, as well as giving topics that would be really innovative. It was “Three Genre in a Story” method, aka TGIS.

Basic idea of TGIS is to choose three random genres from my genre pool, and write a story based on these genres. For example, if I choose random genre like “LIFE, MEDIEVAL, PLANET”, I will write a story that has main characters living in another planet with medieval lifestyle. I had successfully driven off 71 genres from internet by research, so there are about 340000 possible genre combinations that can be made with TGIS.

Well, because the story should contain a main genre that can build a story up, I separated 15 main genres and made a rule to choose a genre only in this pool. After this modification, there was only 72000 possible genre combination. But anyway, it’s a lot. It would take about 200 years for me to write stories for every combination even if I write one at a day.

What do you think? Do you think this will really make creative stories? You’ll see.

BONUS. I just spend my self-studying time making a program that automatically chooses three genres for me. Here’s random list of genres:

Comedy : Apocalyptic : Mecha

Fantasy : Survival : Post-Apocalypse

Science Fantasy : SF : Monster

Political : Religious : Spy

Action : Creatures : Military

Life : Humorous : Zombie

(I personally like the last one… humorous zombie life?)

Age of Stupid -- click and view

I had different approach to the "design" aspect of this assignment. So, I basically made a newspaper theme that is applied on this article. Well, because the blog itself couldn't hold my design, I had to make the article as an image file and upload it here.

SOURCES

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1300563/

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iqpAmP_YG8J2DSs7wKIo4HOvvAMQ?docId=CNG.4232f6ae19eb54c58c9d35b7f0b4995b.a71

http://www.olliesworld.com/planet/aus/info/info/rt_gr03.htm

http://www.worldresourcesforum.org/issue

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/products/6C6F5DAEF2745D72CA256B0B008013D6?OpenDocument

Personal Narrative Speech

Foolish or Creative

As everyone was, I was once a naïve child. I was very active and made many accidents. The problem was that I was hyperactive: I couldn't stop making accidents with my extraordinary thinking. For example, I once jumped off from second floor, believing that I can fly! Moreover, I even decided to dye my hair red and green thinking they are cool… which actually resulted in a watermelon look. Anyway, because of my bizarre behaviors, my parent thought of me as one of two: foolish, or something else. This continued, until they finally made the decision due to an incident.

The story begins in my first grade classroom. I don’t remember specifically, but I’m sure that the teacher taught us about sea animals, because our teacher decided to decorate our classroom with sea animals shortly after the class. Once the teacher made her decision, she ordered us to make our favorite sea animals with color papers, by tomorrow.

After school, I wondered what my favorite sea animal was. Even though I learned so many of them that morning, I thought none of them were cool enough to be my favorite. (Well, being cool was my priority at that time) Suddenly, one specific ‘sea animal’ flashed through my mind. It was smart and importantly, very cool. Also, I had seen it often on TV shows. Without hesitation, I started creating this animal.

What came to your mind when I said “very smart, very cool, and often shown on TV?” I believe most of you thought of dolphin. Yes. They are smart, and there are many dolphin shows. But my favorite ‘sea animal’ was not dolphin. It was a very soft organism, and had little spots on its body. It is yellowish, and has unique body structure. Still don’t get it? Here’s the last hint: it wears square pants and lives in a pineapple. Yes. What I brought to the teacher was a “SpongeBob”

Its sounds quiet funny, isn't it? The problem was… that I was really serious with my creation. At this time, I really believed SpongeBob was a living organism. Also, I thought there was some of wild “SpongeBobs” living under the ocean.

Teacher thought I had serious problems with my thinking, so she tried to diagnose my problem by asking questions.

“How come you thought SpongeBob is real?” She asked me.

“Because it’s real! I even have one in my home!”

“Then, where is it?” She asked me with a “What are you talking about” face.

“My mother uses him to wash the dishes everyday”

“Are you talking about sponge?”

“Yes. Sponge is dead body of SpongeBob, and we use them to wash dishes.” I concluded.

Even I, have no idea where this idea came from. But due to this conversation, teacher alleged that I was rather foolish, or was affected too much by TV.

Later, when the school had an official parent-teacher meeting, my teacher broached this topic, and said there should be correction to my wrong thinking. She even assumed that I was sitting in front of TV most of days. Well, even though this assumption was entirely correct, my parent had different ideas: They rather chose to believe that my actions were of natural creativity. Also, they started encouraging me to think, and to live more freely.

This memory of SpongeBob itself wasn't really important. It was just a silly happening. However, the decision my parent made due to SpongeBob had big impact on me. I’m not sure whether this decision made me more creative or not; but I’m sure it made me become who I am now. What would have happened, if my parent adopted the teacher’s idea and thought me as a slow, unintelligent kid? I would have lived in suppressed environment to become a structured child, and lost my own thinking skills. I might have studied better, but I would never been satisfied with myself.

For these reasons, I really appreciate this piece of memory.

Thank you for listening. 

In class essay ①-Personal Narrative

How I Changed

Have you ever heard of a city Dalian? It’s one of the huge cities in China, but is rather unknown compared to such metropolises like Beijing or Shanghai. Well, it isn't far from here, because it only takes an hour for us to get there by a flight. I know this, because I rode uncountable numbers of flight to this exotic city, in order to get back home. Yes. I lived in this foreign city before, and it wasn't a short visit. In fact, it was 5 years of my 17 year life. At there, I sometimes suffered, and sometimes felt happy. Well, I still cannot determine whether I was happy living there or not. However, one thing is sure: I would not have been a person who I am now, if I hadn't had chance to live there.

           It was in my fourth grade, when I had to forcefully move to Dalian. It was a hard experience. First of all, I had to leave all my friends I knew since I entered elementary school. Also, living in an environment where I cannot talk to made me nervous, and stressed. There were school problems too. Most of school there provided worst education possible (they were teaching Alphabets to 6^th graders. More shockingly, it was an international school). Only if I failed to enter DAIS (Dalian American International School), I would've become an idiot. However, by entering DAIS, I got “chances” to think freely and creative, chances to stack whole lots of knowledge, and also a chance to become fluent at English and Chinese. The only problem was that, I just tend to “only” play days after days, not even trying to utilize these chances.

            It was about one and a half years from my entrance to DAIS that I faced a significant day in my life. On that day, the mood of my house was strangely harsh, and heavy. I did not realize anything, until I saw my mother taking out a paper that resembled my report card. Well, it actually was my report card, which recorded several Cs on it. This proved that I was absolutely enjoying my life at DAIS in somewhat wrong way. Even at that point, I didn’t understand the seriousness of the situation. I had no idea what was wrong. Rather, I hated the condition when I was scolded by my parents for several hours. Shortly after that, I left the place with great anger on my face, and headed to my room.

           And that very night on about 3’O clock, I woke up to have some relief at bathroom. But by a chance, I heard sound coming out from my parent’s room. Not a sound that I have heard for several years; it was sound of sadness. My mother was crying. It wasn’t loud, but I could absolutely feel the mood. She was talking about me, but not in a reproachful mood, but rather in worrisome tone. She said things, which I couldn’t really understand fully at that time. Yet, I unquestionably felt, that I should not make her sad any longer.

Miracle happened, and I started utilizing all the chances I had been ignoring. As a result, in several years, I evolved, becoming an outstanding feature of DAIS. It was at this moment, that I eventually noticed one touching truth: My parents were devoting everything to me and my brother. They had to give up their preparation for old age by sending us both to international schools. My mother spent her own time to get all the possible information needed to raise us. Mostly, she had to endure immatureness of me until I stood up by myself.

Neglecting these memories, I can possibly say only one word:

“Thank you, and Sorry Mom.”