Although I was born in Seattle, Washington, I grew up surrounded by the Korean language and Korean traditions. I attended a Korean church, went to Korean school during the weekends, had only other Korean friends, and wasn’t really exposed to much of American culture or white people for that matter besides watching the television or occasionally playing with my neighbors. It wasn’t until I hit kindergarten where I was struck with a culture shock.

As I entered kindergarten, there was one essential missing piece to myself. I could not speak English. I remember picking out my prettiest dress that matched with my prettiest shoes for the day, never considering the fact that my lack of knowledge for the English language would be a problem. As the day went on and I realized that I was not able to communicate my thoughts to my peers, I began to question, ‘what have I done wrong’? How could I, who lived in America for my whole five years of life, only know a few select words such as ‘Hi’ or ‘Bye’? I used to be so proud of the fact that I was a master at the Korean language. My parent’s friends would often remark about how fluently I spoke it, and would assume that I had just come from Korea. Now, it was completely different. I was ashamed of knowing this language that no one in my class ever spoke or heard of, and I detested being the odd one out.

Luckily, surrounded by other carefree five year olds and very helpful teachers, no one was ever judgmental of me not being able to speak English. It was only me who could not get over my insecurity of not being able to fluently communicate with other people. My teacher arranged for me to get a special tutor to help me learn how to speak in basic ways, and the entire class would listen every week to the new words and sentences that I had learned. In a year, I was able to communicate freely to my friends without difficulty.

**However, there were some rough patches along the way. One day, as I saw one of my friends in class, I went to go say hello. I decided to, what I perceived as lightly, pat her on the back of the shoulders with both of my hands to get her attention. I guess she took this the wrong way, and told the teacher on me for hitting her. ** <-- (I think this whole paragraph is worded very awkwardly but I don't know how to change it)

 “Why did you hit Chloe, Lisa? That’s not a very nice thing to do!” My teacher exclaimed. She went on scolding me for another five minutes.

I was in complete shock. I did not do anything wrong! I was merely acknowledging my friend by patting her on the shoulders! I tried my best to somehow communicate, “I didn’t mean to!”, but I could not come up with the words. I was so frustrated by not being able to tell her this, but there was nothing I could do. I simply stood there and took my punishment, trying my best to hold back my tears.

However bad that might sound, there were actually a lot of enjoyable experiences. As I learned the words around, behind, in front of, etc., my classmates would often join in when I had to demonstrate these words in the context of being by a desk. All of my classmates would try and help me learn a few words or phrases, and I made a lot of close friends during that year from just that.

Learning English was definitely one of the most difficult experiences I had to go through in school, but the rewards of being able to communicate with my peers was so much more rewarding. I learned to be patient and maintain persistence, as well as get over my insecurity of being different. Now, I am so appreciative of the fact that I am able to speak two languages; it is like I am apart of two totally separate worlds that I can switch in and out of.