Money or Love

Some got fired, some got divorced, and some committed suicide. All these events occurred from 1997 to 2002 in South Korea because of the severe economic crisis. Since Korea became one of the most developed countries in the world, Koreans have been able to live better than before, but they should have had a self-restraint. They opened a champagne bottle too soon. Then, the government of Republic of Korea had to borrow money to get help from IMF (International Monetary Fund). Meanwhile, everybody was in a difficult situation except my family. Fortunately, my father had a communication service business which was not affected by the IMF crisis, but he earned more money than others. An ironic benefit of the crisis was that my family could move from a small house to a big and fancy apartment. The changes were not only about the house but about also my relationships among my family members. In fact, paradoxically my family connections become loose because of our increased wealth.

One change was the cold atmosphere that surrounded my father and me. Although I have many similarities with my father, we do not care much about each other. When I was nine years old, he started his own business instead of working at Samsung Corporation. Since that time, I have hardly had a conversation with my father. Frankly speaking, I believed that he took advantage of his business as an excuse to escape from my family when he was too busy to talk. His strong willingness of success was derived from his upbringing. My father, who was born as the youngest child in a poor farmer family, did not have any academic support from his parents. He fed cows and cultivated land day and night, but he also studied hard for his dream. Finally, he accomplished his desire, yet he would never stop. After the IMF crisis gave us a high status, he switched his business from the communication service to an alcohol corporation. As he took a different regional business over, my family had to move to a strange place. Even though I understood him and his background, his dogmatic decision did not make sense at all. My family members abandoned all our acquaintances just to chase more money. From the moment my family moved to a new and big place, the situation was getting worse. My father came home late because of his business, so my relationship with him has started to deteriorate. In addition, it affected my relationship between my father and my mother as well.

My mother and I are connected by a burning string. I think that she reflects her dreams to me and hopes to get a substitute satisfaction. Because my mother was also raised with the same status as my father, she wanted to run away from poverty. She went to the College of Education to become a teacher instead of becoming a designer because she did not have enough money to do so. However, she did overwhelmingly well at both her work and household, and she supported my family until my father had success. Before she had to quit her job due to my father’s request, she was an enthusiastic, confident, wise, and hard-working mother when she was an elementary-school teacher. My father cared a lot about the social reputation that he needed my mother as a housewife. Then, she flipped from a professional teacher to a typical soccer mom. She kept talking about her heyday and regretted quitting job, so she gave me pressure to be what she wanted to. Hence, I was forced to enter an expensive private women’s university which was well known as the community of respectable families’ daughter. The college was located in Seoul, which meant I could no longer be with my family, so my only time to meet my family was on weekends and vacations. As a matter of fact, the distant problem affected the relationship between my brother and me.

Although there are occasional problems, a rubber band connects my brother and me. My brother, who is three years younger than me, was a weak, dependant, and good-hearted child when we were in elementary school. Because both of my parents were working, I have looked after him since I remember. I had done everything I possibly could for him by the time we left our hometown. My brother and I spent our time separately at different private educational institutions. As a result, I had no idea about my brother’s trouble or worries. Then, when I graduated from high school, I barely saw him. Furthermore, “Out of sight, out of mind.” Even though we are siblings and are connected with a durable rubber band, it is hard to catch up with him due to the long distance between Korea and the United States. Now, he is performing his obligatory military service, and I am studying in the United States, which is fourteen hours by airplane from Korea. I am sure that he must have hard time in the army, but we have only talked by phone two times since I came to Chicago.

Fortunately, as time goes by, all my members of family do realize what the problems are, and we are trying to recover our relationships. My family circumstance makes me think about the Japanese cartoon “GTO (Great Teacher Onizuka)” which is about unpredictable teacher Onizuka. One of his students had a similar problem as mine, so he went to her house, and broke the wall between her father and her mother’s room with a huge hammer. The story was ridiculous, but it gave me a lesson that I had a responsibility to make a daring decision. I should have not let everything have its own way but recovered my family relationships. Even if I cannot go back to my memory, which is at my small and wooden floor house with a trifoliate orange tree and eating baked sweet potatoes with all my family together, I will do my best to bring my family together again.

Tomorrow will be better

All Asian people remember the year, 1997, the year of Asian Financial Crisis. Thirteen years ago, it was just like a hurricane that hit various Asian countries. Hong Kong was also been involved in the storm. When the stock market collapsed, the property bubble exploded, and the economy declined, sudddenly, it seemed that my family fells down from a cliff which named "rich". We lost the only house we had, and need to rent out instead, we also lost a lot of from stock. The crisis has changed oure life, it gaves us a big charllenge; Although we have had a hard time, we final passed it through.
In the several years after 1997, I've been moved three times, from the east to the west of town or my mother town to another one. In each time my friends were shocked, "Oh you are moving again?" They didn't really try to remember my home address because they knew somewhen it may change again. Of course I didn't feel good with this, but I had no choice. Because of the crisis, the bubble of the property was inevitably exploded. The value of those property, included ours, fell down like a despairing man jump off from thirteen floor. Our house dropped from 2.2 million HKD to the final 0.8 million. When we sold it, because my parent was still paying for it, we became one of the hundred-thousand negative equities. We needed to rent a house to live after paying back all the money to the bank, sometimes we even needed to stay in my grandparent's home. At first I had bad feeling about living in others place. But Dad told me, "It's the reality, you need to face it instead of escape." I tried to get with the situation, tried to change another way to think. Knew that I'm not the only one who are being affected, I finally can dealt with it normally. Then after these years, we moved into a new bought house in the new town.


During these years, I got used to living as a basic-level citizen. Before that stormy year, my family was a part of the bourgeoisie; Nevertheless, the stock market was been destroyed, where my parent had invested a lot of money. At that time, the major index - just like what happened in property market - had been evaporated by at least seventy percent. Like many others, parent lost a big part of their saving. I needed to control my expenses, and buy as little as possible. Compared to my friedns, I had less time on having dinner outside, I bought fewer new clothes and spend less time on hanging out. You may think that was poor, yet I think it was a meaningful experience. Even if I had not much material life than the others, at least I'd learned how to save money and knew the advantage of being frugal. In addition, now I know how to dress up nice and beautifully with paying less money.

The biggest effect of the crisis was the harm of economy. For a long period of time people, including my family and me, were living under the great pressure of depression. When we turned on the televison, the bad news were everywhere and everyday. Uncontable shops were closed up, companies went into bankruptcy, and high umemployment rate had been leasted for many years. My father was in a good condition of a factory in the mainland China, mother was a normal staff in a company, the effect of depression was pestering them eveyday. They didn't know if they will be the next new members of unemployed. Fortunately, they were save. Though my father now get less pay than before, we think we were not as poor as we thought.
If I can turn back time, I'm sure I'd avoid to live like these years, no one want to get trouble. But for sure, sometimes trouble can makes one who become mature. Now the crisis became a part of history, although it was a nightmare, yet people won't forget it. My family, and everyone who had experienced those hard years, will remember how they overcome such a nightmarish time doughtily.

My Values, My Father

Do you have someone who you want to emulate? There are a lot of great people in this world, so you might be confused about that question. But whenever someone asks me about that, I always reply that I want to follow after my father. Frankly speaking, he is not very outstanding or rich; on the contrary, he had a poor childhood and couldn’t get a good education. However, I know there are many things more valuable in this world than knowledge or money. Because he went through a rough childhood and adolescence, he has acquired many values naturally. I’ve learned these things from his life and thoughts even if he has never taught me directly. I still believe his teachings are the most precious in my life.

After World War Ц and The Korean War, Korea was one of the poorest nations in the world. Therefore, yield and sacrifice became kind of virtues in Korean society. My father was born in 1959, immediately after the Korean War, in a poor village in Korea. He has five siblings and he is not the oldest of the family. But he had to work for his older brother’s education, because it was a common belief at that time. “The first is going well, others are going well.” Therefore, he worked in the rice field for his family instead of going to school. But he didn’t think it was unfair because what he did was for his family and brothers and, his brothers still appreciate that. Sometimes, we can get unexpected good results from our sacrifice and yield. These thoughts are very important for every relationship. Now, he always says “You should think of your mother and brother first.” He has never wanted something for himself. I know he also wants something for him as a person, but he has never expressed those feelings. It might be the teaching for selfless mind and sacrifice without saying.

“Experience is better than learning.” This is a Western proverb, and this phrase has been engraved in my mind. When my father was seventeen, he came to Seoul to live by himself. In fact, the 1970s was a period of agitation in modern Korean history. Korea accomplished rapid economic development which is called “the miracle of Han-river”, so we could prepare to take off for the present time. In contrast, we went through a lot of political and social changes like a military coup and the movement for democratization. In those days, he worked at a factory to learn some skills to make clothes and to earn money. Like other people in his generation, he couldn’t get any education from school after that time. Because he didn’t get a good education, he has never forced me about my future and grade. He just says he can support me as he can. But I know he knows much more than me because sometimes we can learn more things from hard times. I’ve never been ashamed of his education level. I believe that his modest experiences are much bigger than arrogant knowledge.

Trust and love are very important for every relationship. After a few years, my father met my mother at his work place. And I’m sure my family has never had any serious troubles. I always think about them rather than about myself, and they also think about me. My father prefers advice to force because he knows advice is more effective. The reason that he has never enforced might be the trust about me. He always believes me and supports what I am doing. So, I don’t want to give him any disappointments. Love is also one of the most treasured things in this world. In fact, saying I love you to family is very hard and embarrassing. I just say that word on the parent’s day formally. Sometimes he says he loves me when he’s drunk, but he also don’t say that usually. However, he and I always think about the love even if we don’t say frequently. I can feel that he always treats my family with trust, love, and his deep heart.

Frankly speaking, sometimes I forget the importance of these values. People in the world are getting hard-hearted, and we are accustomed to competing for our success. And there are a lot of values in these modern days like the knowledge, money or power, but what I’ve learned from my father are the selfless mind, trust and love. He has never taught me any lessons or teachings, but I believe the actions that I’ve seen are stronger than any words. I can learn these values from his life and heart without any words. I’m not sure which values are more precious, but I think that what I’ve learned from my father will be more important in the future.

Endless Trip on the Weels of History

Mariya Leviton

English 100

October, 6 2010

Endless Trip on the Wheels of History

I never met my grandfather-in- law, nor did my husband ever meet him. However, our life was greatly influenced by this person’s decisions and achievements. More than a century separates Morton Leviton and me, but we are connected through a circle of events that took place during his lifetime and during lifetime of his kids and grandchildren. My daughter, who was only two years old when we first came to America, repeated her great- grandfather’s trip from one continent to another. Nevertheless, this trip was made hundred years later and under less dramatic circumstances.

My grandfather –in- law left Ukraine in 1904. This year was marked like the most bloody in the history of Ukraine. People all over the country were fighting for their rights, while the Tsar started the Russian-Japanese war. Odessa, were Morton lived, at that time was a center of political and economical events. Before the Russian Revolution of 1917 happened and the Bolsheviks came to the power, people in Ukraine and Russia suffered from poverty and economical injustice. The Tsar lost his authority among his own people because besides poor economic conditions of all working class, a lot of people were prosecuted for religious, racial or political reasons. For example, there were a couple of Pogroms, which means “riots”. They were anti-Semitic attacks, initiated by Tsar and different political forces. Such bloody pogroms encouraged a lot of Russian Jews to immigrate to America. Morton Leviton along with other Jews were forced to escape from the agony of the war in Odessa. A group of people, the majority of whom were just teenagers, took a risky boat tour at night fleeing for their lives and leaving behind their families, home and motherland.

America turned out to be a safe haven for my grandfather in law. A lot of possibilities were waiting for him, and no Bolsheviks threatened his life. Morton Leviton received an American education and became an architect. By the age of thirty he got married, bought a big house and had three children. However, things changed dramatically.  In 1929, the stock market crashed and it resulted in a huge economic recession. As a result, millions of Americans lost their homes, jobs and a hope to earn any source of income. My grandfather- in- law became the ultimate victim of that horrible event in American history. He lost his job and was forced to sell his house. Morton felt totally devastated and crushed under the cruel circumstances of his life. He declared a bankruptcy and couldn’t live any more. The last moments of Morton Leviton’s life were dedicated to the frantic ideas how to protect his family and how to earn money to feed his kids. Thus, all the terror of his childhood years in Ukraine came back to Morton in the form of dark depression which wrapped America like an endless night. Mr. Leviton didn’t live to see the dawn of the American economy. His heart was broken, and his health was destroyed. Morton Leviton died at the age of thirty- five, just five years before the Great Depression ended and the economy of the country started to recover.

As a result, my husband’s grandmother in law raised kids herself. After all, the family survived the Great Depression and flourished for the  next eighty years. All the kids inherited their father’s talents and a good ability to learn. One of them, Gordon Leviton, who would give birth to my husband, became an editor. He was a multitalented person, who could have become a genius writer, musician or artist. However, he didn’t achieve so much in his life and died young at the age of 42, just like his father. My husband believes that being raised without a father, his father became a very skeptical and bitter person, who didn’t take advantage of any of his talents.

Being descendants from Ukraine, my American relatives became Americanized and wouldn’t recognize any difference between Ukraine and Russia. In fact, they didn’t know about their Ukrainians roots before my husband did his family tree investigation. My husband, Roger Leviton is a third generation Ukrainian in America, and he became fascinated and carried away by his grandfather’s life story. Furthermore, he decided to take a trip to Ukraine, his historical motherland. This trip led to his marriage with me, a Ukrainian woman, and to the birth of our daughter, who was born in Ukraine. By the will of the fate, the life of my husband once again was related to Ukraine; nevertheless, in more real way, far from the fantasy. A hundred years after his grandfather left Ukraine, my husband fulfilled a perfect plan to bring me and my daughter to America. Like Morton Leviton, we crossed the Atlantic Ocean and moved from one continent to another. However, our trip was not dramatic or dangerous. Compared to the illegal boat tour of his grandfather, our jet flight was fun and very fast. Even though my daughter never saw her great-grandfather, she inherited his genes, and repeats little bit of his history - the history of becoming American and creating the new generation of Ukrainians in America.

In conclusion, history has a tendency to be repeated. You never know where your curiosity can bring you. Will it be a tourist trip to a new country, or will it give a start to a new generation of people, who in their turn will repeat your own history. For example, my grandfather- in- law became a hero for my husband because he achieved a lot in his life. For instance, he moved to a new country, studied a new language and became an architect. However, life was cruel to him and once again he moved to the other side of the scale – poor and desperate. Nevertheless, the family, which he established in America, survived and keeps growing till the present days. Now, I wonder how surprised he would be if he lived to see his grandson renews his Ukrainian genes in the Levitons’ genealogy.

Donna Krol

ESL 100

October 6, 2010

Pope John Paul II – There is Still Hope for People of the World

Karol Wojtyla known later as Pope John Paul II is the most important Polish man in history. His influence on people has been enormous. He was instrumental in ending communism in Europe and in uniting all Christians and improving relationship with Jews, Buddhist and Muslims. He was the first non-Italian pope in 455 years, the second youngest pope ever and second longest presiding (for 26 years and 168 days). He visited 129 countries in the world spreading God’s words and love between different nations and religions.

Karol Wojtyla was a man who improved the relationship with other religions. That was something wonderful and very hard to accomplish with all the hatred between different religions in the world. He was a very smart, well-educated man. He was a polyglot who knew thirteen languages. Karol Wojtyla was a writer, poet, actor and later priest, archbishop, cardinal and Pope. He taught people religious tolerance. Before his papacy, in many countries, including Poland, there was prejudice. People could only marry the person of same religion. Nobody could visit other churches, or read other bible that wasn’t printed by their church because it was a sin. Pope John Paul II was first pope that officially visited Jewish synagogue, Islamic mosque, and Eastern Orthodox Churches in Greece, Ukraine and Romania. His teaching even reached my family. My mother didn’t like when I become friends with somebody who was not Roman Catholic. After Pope visited other churches and talked to people of different religions, my mom was more tolerant. She didn’t give me a hard time when I was seeing non Catholics or reading their books or magazines. If Polish pope did it, it was all right to do it for everybody else too. Later I could have friends from different nationality and religions. I was finally able to be open with my friends. My best friends in Poland were Greek Orthodox girl, Eleni and Russian Protestant boy, Misha. We spend many evening together talking about similarity and differences in our beliefs and our religions.

The most important achievement of Pope John Paul II was helping to abolish communism in Europe. He was against communist regime in Poland. He gave courage Polish people to rise up under peaceful revolution against their government. Life in Poland at that time was very hard. People had money, but there wasn’t enough food to buy in stores. Food like bread, sugar, meat and dairy products could be bought only with ration cards. Many Polish people couldn’t buy anything because there was no food. There was embargo against Poland (because of Polish regime and Marshal Law) and nobody would sell anything to our country. In addition people couldn’t go anywhere, except other communist countries. After the end of communist era, life in Poland became better. Polish officials could buy food from other countries and people were happier and healthier. After all years of repression, the government was more tolerant and was giving people passports to visit Western European countries and USA. That was when my mother applied for passport and after receiving it, she came to Chicago to visit her brother. My uncle escaped from the concentration camp in Germany and migrated to USA during War World II. After a couple years when my mom got a job and saved enough money, she sent for me and I moved to USA to find a better life.

Finally John Paul II was also the first pope invited to White House. After his first visit in 1979 people everywhere started to show respect to the Polish people. Before the Polish pope, I was sometimes a subject of racist comments and some people were telling Polish jokes in front of me, especially at work. Whenever a Polish name was mentioned on the news in connection with some crime, the next day my boss would be sure to mention it to me. Her comments were: “our government takes everybody, all those criminals. Deport them back to their countries, we don’t need them. They take our jobs and commit crimes”. One of my coworkers was telling Polish jokes whenever he was pleased. After Karol Wojtyla became the pope, suddenly everybody loved Polish people. A man, who used to tease me so much told me that his mother was Polish. Whenever I sad that I am Polish, people would telling me about John Paul II and how much they admired him.

It is amazing how one man can change the life of one nation. The Polish Pope received the Nobel Peace Prize in February 2004 for his life’s work in opposing communist repression and helping to reshape the world. President George W. Bush presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the U.S.’s highest civilian honor to John Paul II on June 4, 2004, which recognized “this son of Poland” whose “principles stand for peace and freedom has inspired millions and helped to topple communism and tyranny”. The world needs more people like him, and then maybe the world would be a better and safer place for all people, regardless of race and religion. He helped the Polish people a lot, and thanks to him I am and many other people proud to be Polish.

After Life

“If we don’t change, this government will fall.” This was said by Deng Xiaoping in 1978. After the Cultural Revolution, China was very poor and damaged. The paramount leader of China, Deng Xiaoping saw that the country needed another revolution. Therefore, he presented his plan, “The Reform and Opening-Up Policy,” which was designed to help the economy of the country. It opened the gate of China to let foreigners go into China to do business, and to let the citizens travel abroad to other countries. Before The Reform and Opening-Up Policy, it was very hard to get in and out of the country. The gate was closed. If you wanted to go some other place, you needed to ask your local government office to get an approval statement to prove you could go to your desired destination. It was impossible for people to go to the United States or other countries. After The Reform and Opening-Up Policy, it not only boosted up the economy, it also allow people to move to other countries as well. The Reform and Opening-Up Policy had changed many things in my family, including the financial status, lifestyle, and the freedom to move to anywhere.

After The Reform and Opening-Up Policy was promoted, the financial status of the country and my family had a dramatic change. Since the government started to let people to have their own business, my great grandfather opened a company in the city to sell imported goods. The business was going very well. Because of the gate had just opened, people were craving new things that came from the outside world. My great grandfather earned a lot of money, thousands times more than he used to earn before the Policy was initiated. He used to earn nothing other than food tickets and daily supply tickets from the government. Before The Reform and Opening-Up Policy, people couldn’t have their own business. In fact, everything belonged to the government, and everyone had to work together for it. They got their food and daily supply tickets from the government every month. Since my great grandfather started to earn money, our life began changing for better. We had so much money, more than we could ever imagine. We got to buy whatever we wanted, and go anywhere we want. For example, my great grandfather bought a car for my father, he was only ten years old. He was the only one in his school that has his own car and driver. At home, we didn’t have to do household works anymore because we had over twenty servants in our house. My family’s life was very luxurious at that time.

In addition, since The Reform and Opening-Up Policy, our lifestyle has one hundred and eighty degree change from before. Before my family become rich, we had to work almost every day ,and there were not so many entertainments we could enjoy. However, after the gate was opened, so many new things from the outside world came into China and came into our life. We had more new toys to play with and more things to discover; consequently, we didn’t even have time to do what we used to do. Shopping was became our new job. We went shopping every single day, and all we do was shopping and enjoying high-tea with our upper class friends. These things would never have crossed our mind before we were poor. Now, we cannot go back to live our old lives.

Meanwhile, another effect of The Reform and Opening-Up Policy was the freedom to move out of the country. Because of that, I got to come to the United States, and my life has changed ever since. Living in the United States is very different than living in China. In the United States, you can get whole bunch benefits of freedom. The United States is a free country. You can do whatever you want, and say whatever you want. More importantly, it is a new start of my life. Living here my life is beginning to change again, and I wanted it to happen. I was so tired of who I used to be. As of today, I want to be a new person. Someone I never knew before. Living in the United States is so much fun. Since I live here alone by myself, without parents supervising, I can do whatever I like to do just like others in this country. However living in the United States is also hard for me. Now I am living in a new country with my great grandfather’s legacy and my family’s help, and I have to restart all over again by myself. I have to learn a new language, which is very hard to learn. I have to work to earn money to pay for my rent and tuition because I have no money. I did take any money from my family when I came here. So, I am on my own, but I am sure I will work this out. I will succeed without my family’s help because I am in the United States of America. In this country, there is a lot of freedom and opportunity. Everyone will find a new part of themselves here. Everyone can reinvent themselves.

The Reform and Opening-Up Policy was a huge success. It changed my family’s financial status, lifestyle and let me live in the United States. It had changed my family’s life from head to toe, and it was not only changed my family, it also changed everyone in the country. It even changed the character of China in the world. I am very glad that Deng Xiaoping presented The Reform and Opening-Up Policy. Now that I am living in a new nation, I will continue to reinvent myself.

When the Family Encountered a New Lifestyle

I used to have the farmer’s market at my home. When my mother ordered me to go get any vegetables, I promptly said “Yes,” and went out to the yard. At that time, I didn’t appreciate how wonderful it was. As economic development was happening in Korea, people attempted to move to big cities to get a better job or opportunities to have a better life. Apparently, moving to big cities seemed necessary. As a result of that, Seoul, the capital city of Korea, was rapidly getting bigger and bigger, and the cost of living was getting higher and higher. Necessarily, the government announced plans to decentralize the population in Seoul. Constructing bedroom communities for distributing residential districts around Seoul was the core plan, and my hometown was picked because people could reach Seoul within one hour from my hometown by car. In addition, the highway goes all the way across my hometown. I still remember the day clearly when my father delivered the news from the residence meeting. I was shocked, but contented. As a teenager, I always admired urban life like the people in the TV dramas, and I believed that new circumstances would bring a lot of exciting experiences to me. My family was uprooted from our deep-rooted ground, but we found another way to keep up our traditional activities while we were gradually adapting to new circumstances.

Adapting to the new lifestyle took time, but it wasn’t that long for us. Whenever my mother came back from grocery shopping, she complained a lot about the price of vegetables. She didn’t seem to understand why green onions cost a lot more than she expected. Although we were surrounded by all kinds of convenience stores, she didn’t appreciate it. However, I was just grateful, especially when I flashed back to my high school life. I went through hard time those days. I had to get up before the sun came out like 5:40 to catch the first bus of the day; otherwise, I was tardy. The first class began at 8:30, but most Korean high schools forced students to be there at 7:30, and compelled students to stay at school until 10:00 p.m. even midnight because principals and parents believed that spending more time at school brought a better achievement. If I had lived close to the school, I could have stayed in the bed at least one more hour. It was all my wishes. As the time went by, my mother realized how to take advantage of the new circumstances. When she is not in a mood to cook dinner, she didn’t need to do. Instead, all she had to do is pick up the phone and say what she wanted to order. Surprisingly, my grandmother was the fastest one who embraced the new lifestyle. She made bunch of friends the day after we moved into a new apartment, and she became the leader of the senior group. Her sorrow which was showed in her eyes when she left our hometown faded away quickly.

After we moved into a modern style apartment in a tall building, our favorite family activity of farming was stopped for a while. My uncles, aunts, and their families used to get together at least twice a year to plant and harvest sweet potatoes. Once when we had this activity, more than twenty family members got together at my father’s farm, and worked together all day long. To some little family members, like my two-year-old nephew, it was a joyful picnic, and they made the day splendid. The most interesting part of farming was at the end of the day in our fall activity, everyone pleasantly put the sweet potatoes in their cars until the cars were full. However, my father always insisted that we give more sweet potatoes to everybody. It was so much fun, so over the years more and more relatives wanted to join the activity, and of course, the door was open for everybody. After we were uprooted from our ground, my father missed the feeling of the day a lot, so he decided to purchase a small farm to revive the activity. My husband also joined the activity since he was my boyfriend. After we came to the U.S., around thanksgiving season, we enjoyed talking about the memory, and started wondering how many members are going to join this year. If somebody asks me why of all sweet potatoes, I just can say that we love them.

The modern style apartment neighbors seemed to have a totally different culture form my old neighbors. I hardly can see the people who live next door, and I hardly greet them when I meet them in the elevator. In contrast, this wouldn’t be the case if I lived in my hometown. We were so close to each other, so if I didn’t greet my neighbors politely, no matter where I ran into them, my parents would scold me right away as if I ignored my relatives. This culture was applied to other households in my hometown, and it was a valuable lesson for kids. In addition, we did many things together like seasonal trips and attend each other’s family events. On my wedding day, my father rented two big buses to transport my neighbors to the wedding venue, which was located in Seoul, and they wished me good luck. Moreover, we still kept our old customs by electing an unofficial representative. The representative would organize seasonal trips, plan for regular meetings and transmit news to everybody. I think keeping the old custom and accepting new one was my neighbors’ strategy to adjust their lives, and it worked well.


I had always wished to live in a big city, and my dream has come true. All my family members have adapted to the new environment well, and it brought great results. Frankly, I have to admit that my old rural home is always depicted as a home in my dream, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t like my new home. It is just like a childhood which everyone misses all the time. The government urban development plan affected my family and me in a various ways, but life has continued positively.