TOPIC: Consider something in your life you think goes unnoticed and write about why it's important to you.
FEEL FREE TO CRITICIZE
My life as a privileged outcast
As a teenager who has been exposed to a multi-cultural environment from infancy to adolescence, I was able to experience a diversity of cultures. However, rather than perceiving myself as a privileged teenager, I perceived myself as an aberration or even an outcast with substantial burden behind back, hardly noticing how fortunate and privileged I am.
I left my home country, South Korea and came to Shanghai, China right after my first birthday; I attended an American school where students from different countries coalesced to form an international community. Since then, I would use English at school, use Chinese in public, and use Korean when I was back home. This phenomenon was definitely very exhaustive for a mentally premature kid, who had to use three different languages concurrently. However, the anguish of this type of life pattern diminished as time passed, and soon became clouded over by the mundaneness of daily life.
I had never perceived feelings how fortunate I am to be able to dwell in an international environment and feel diversity of cultures since a very young age. Meeting and communicating fluently with people from different countries and cultures in different languages were not aberrations, but typical situations for me.
However, whenever I strolled around in Korea, I always saw students of my age in typical Korean school uniforms, but I didn't feel a sense of kinship or empathy with them. Unlike those students who are accustomed to the Korean culture and system, I found myself having a hard time trying to blend into the Korean society. Speaking Korean in public, taking the Korean subway, bus etc, everything that is pedestrian for local Koreans was new and unfamiliar. It felt like as if I was suffering from paranoia, trying to isolate myself from Koreans. Despite my identical nationality and similar appearance with them, I felt like a foreigner, or even an outcast to be extreme.
Since childhood, I experienced a substantial amount of identical crises. I was Korean who was more accustomed to foreign cultures, and felt like an outcast whenever visiting Korea. Looking only at the brightside of so called ' privilege ' of mine, people called me a lucky prodigy, who would excel at academic career. This approached as a great burden, which have compelled me to push myself to meet their expectations.
It hasn't been very long since I realized how fortunate I have been. During the summer vacation of 2012. I had an opportunity to serve as an English teacher who helps with students' speeches, for an English Camp in Shanghai. Numerous people from China and Korea attended this program, from an elementary school student to a university graduate. At first, I found my self in a very alerted state, within a concern of whether the students from Korea would perceive me as a cocky and a haughty person.
However, I was surprised at their severe reverences toward me, and their passions to learn English. I realized how I have been over thinking about local Koreans', none of them though me as an aberration, but a very privileged person, who has an ability to teach English at quite a young age. Not only did I taught English to the students, but also told them numerous stories of my life in China. Every time I told them my stories, they were always fascinated as if they have heard fantasy stories. It was then when I found myself as a very privileged person who could have learned foreign languages and have experienced foreign cultures since a very young age.
I am currently at a stage of my life where I am about to commence a significant transition of becoming independent. At this stage of my life, I think that it is very fortunate for me to have realized how privileged I have been so I could personally thank my parents for granting me the privilege. I would soon leave Shanghai, where I have been able to experience the diversity culture, and commence the next part of my life of becoming a global citizen.