Here is the prompt:
Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence.
And here is my essay. Please read, edit, make suggestions, or just comment. Thanks!
"What's wrong with that woman's legs?"
I turned around slowly, looking down our aisle in the produce section. I found it in a junior high kid - maybe only a year or two older than me - who was blatantly staring at my mom's legs.
I looked straight into his eyes and shot back, "No, what's wrong with your face?"
My mom instantly flashed me her signature I'll-deal-with-you-later glare as she turned to apologize to the kid. She took my arm and quickly led me out of the store.
I glanced back to happily see the kid still standing there in mild shock.
"You can't just say things like that, you know."
"Umma, he was being rude. You hate rude people."
She looked down with a half-smile, her hands awkwardly placed on her legs.
When she was young, my mom had been paralyzed by polio from the waist down, leaving her with a scarred heart and a pair of crutches for the rest of her life. I felt her pain at times when she didn't even know she was hurting. This was one of those times.
"I hate it when kids do that. There's nothing wrong with you."
My mom smiled. "You know, for all your merits, you don't have much jeong."
I beamed happily - my mom rarely dished out compliments as such. I backtracked. Wait, I didn't have what?
"What's jeong?" I asked.
My mom's brows furrowed, as they often do when she's trying to put her thoughts to speech. After a short pause, she responded.
"It's like an emotion. It's a bond felt between two beings - like when you love someone, or care for someone, there is jeong between the two of you. The first time you experience jeong is as a newborn, when your mother raises you to her bosom and you realize, even as a baby, that there is something warm and good about the human touch."
I gave her an incredulous look. "Are you saying I don't love you?" I chuckled - it was a ridiculous notion.
She wasn't laughing. I stopped, realizing that she was being serious.
"So when you feel jeong -"
My mom shook her head. "No, you don't feel it. It comes over you at times when you truly experience it. It's something that exists outside of the mind and heart - between you and the rest of the world. It's a state of understanding other people's feelings."
Apparently I hadn't gotten the memo. My mom was the new Confucius.
"How do I not have jeong? I understand, I feel. I empathize."
"Jeong isn't just about empathy. It's about sensing that your individuality is only a part of a sum, that we all have a commitment to each other - it's sacrificing your person for the cause of a whole."
I could feel my own brows furrow as I tried to wrap my head around the concept.
My mom continued. "You should realize that even strangers share some jeong between them. It's small, but it's there. There was jeong between you and that kid back there. If you had realized that, maybe you wouldn't have been so snide."
I raised an eyebrow. "Umma, are you being serious? If someone talks to you like that, they can't expect to just walk away."
She gave me a knowing smile. We both laughed.
Life with a handicapped mother has always seemed like this - a string of lessons. Rare lessons, like this one, would lodge themselves like bubblegum pop in the inner confines of my subconscious. I realized that my mother had in fact been teaching me how to harbor jeong all throughout my life - in the smaller things in life, like in a smile or a simple hand gesture. To me, jeong was the art of putting myself in another's shoes, and walking some miles in it. It was the realization that all of human experience is connected.
I know that the ending is EXTREMELY abrupt, but I just really wanted to churn out the meat of the essay - if you have any suggestions on how to cleanly end the piece, I'd be extremely grateful. Thanks in advance!
Korean, I see? ;)
I liked it in that it's beautifully written up until the last paragraph. You're right, it's abrupt. Remember that this topic is talking about not just the person who has influenced you, but that influence itself. I think you can extend that conversation to how it has changed you, being a bit more concrete about the influence.
Thanks for your feedback! In terms of length, would this be considered too long/short?
And yes, I'm Korean. ;)
i think it's perfect...you were right to the point, may be you want to continue a little bit with the conversation. "to describe that influence"...i can see how your mom has influenced you, but offer some examples in instances where you have practiced that influence. In anothe word, can you offer other examples where you did what your mom did? or how did you used that influence as a guide to your life? how did it change you life...in detail with examples....
Hehe...I am Korean too... ;)
I admire the genuine tone of this essay. Your essay does not seem to be too long (my own is around 680 words total). As others have said before, better articulating your last paragraph would help you essay.
I don't have much feedback, other than the abrupt ending.
But I did love it =)
Hey guys, I don't know if you'll see this, but I did write out the last paragraph a bit more. If you could read/comment, that would be great! Thanks again.
Life with a handicapped mother has always seemed like this: lessons often come at the most unexpected times. Rare lessons, like this one, had the tendency of lodging themselves like bubblegum pop in the inner confines of my subconscious.
I often thought about how my mother, of all people, could harbor so much jeong. After all, she had grown up in a world where she had been afforded very little of it. Still, I was able to see jeong in her everyday actions - in the way she dealt with clients at work, her friends, and even her family - and realized that jeong would involve stepping out of my comfort zone and going out of my way to make others feel at ease.
For me, jeong manifested itself in the smaller things in life, like in a smile or a simple hand gesture. The way I dealt with my peers, superiors, friends, and even strangers evolved and matured: every ounce of effort I put into a relationship was an ounce of effort well spent. Jeong, I learned from my mother, was more than just putting in effort - it was the art of putting yourself in another's shoes, and walking some miles in them; it was about breaking barriers and establishing ties; it was the realization that we are all humans striving to live, love, and learn in a transient world.
Much better. :) I liked it especially because I feel that "jeong" is one of the hardest Korean words to translate and explain.
Really terrific work on this essay.
I'm all for the development of the conclusion paragraph, but with a different angle. My biggest issue with your essay is that your mother's "monologue" tends to dominate and get a little pedantic. Perhaps art imitates laugh, HA!
""No, you don't feel it. It comes over you at times when you truly experience it. It's something that exists outside of the mind and heart - between you and the rest of the world. It's a state of understanding other people's feelings."
"Jeong isn't just about empathy. It's about sensing that your individuality is only a part of a sum, that we all have a commitment to each other - it's sacrificing your person for the cause of a whole."
"You should realize that even strangers share some jeong between them. It's small, but it's there. There was jeong between you and that kid back there. If you had realized that, maybe you wouldn't have been so snide."
This next paragraph is WONDERFUL--incredibly sophisticated and well-written:
"Life with a handicapped mother has always seemed like this - a string of lessons. Rare lessons, like this one, would lodge themselves like bubblegum pop in the inner confines of my subconscious. I realized that my mother had in fact been teaching me how to harbor jeong all throughout my life - in the smaller things in life, like in a smile or a simple hand gesture. To me, jeong was the art of putting myself in another's shoes, and walking some miles in it. It was the realization that all of human experience is connected."
However, don't dilute this stellar paragraph with a broad meditation on acceptance and empathy and understanding ("...it was the art of putting yourself in another's shoes, and walking some miles in them; it was about breaking barriers and establishing ties; it was the realization that we are all humans striving to live, love, and learn in a transient world...") Reconnect to your narrative, show rather than tell; the analysis above is just too good to dilute.
I might even move to the cashier and your manifestation of jeong, though in a different scenario--something that's more subtle and in line with your story and this context. "Check out" at check-out :) I think this will be far more interesting and at the level of your prose.
Cheers,
Janson
That's "art imitates life" above--but I think you get the picture! :) Hope our perspective is helpful!
