PROMPT:
Describe the world you come from - for example, your family, community or school - and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations.
This is my rough draft.. and hope to have comments and revise!!!
Thanks!
*My grandmother had always told me one sentence before she died: "Look around the world more broadly." Until her death, I could not interpret the full meaning this sentence conveyed; I just considered this as one of many clichés that old people like to say. However, in nowadays, when the tension between North Korea and South Korea become higher, I finally realized what my grandmother meant to teach me by telling this one sentence.
*Living in a military base for my entire life, excluding few years that I have been studying in the United States, I have always feared recurrence of the Korean War that went to cease fire fifty-five years ago. As a Republic of Korea's airforce, my dad left home often to participate in many military programs. Sometimes, all of the lights in the base needed to be turned off to simulate the real emergency situation, and sometimes all the people in the base needed to escape to a place that was supposed to be 'asylum.' While such practices were held, my grandmother always drew back in fear; she could not speak, move, or listen. The simulation itself made to automatically envision the time when the crossed the border-when poverty, death, and crime dominated the nation. When she was sixteen-years-old, my grandmother escaped North Korea and came to South in a hope of receiving an appropriate education. However, the reality was not that promising. Instead of receiving education, she had to work in order to contribute in the nation-wide recovery program.
*It took my grandmother as much effort and as long time as it took the nation to recover from such destitution to recover her from combat fatigue syndrome. Even though she was normal all the time, if she was exposed to the war-like situation, she was not able to control herself. Despite her uncontrollable composure, she always emphasized the sentence- "Look around the world more broadly." Nevertheless, I was too young to comprehend this sentence; I was too immature to realize her relinquished dream behind her words.
*Right before her death, my grandmother once again told me to look around the world more broadly. For some reason, ineffable epiphany radiated throughout my body. I was able to discern what my grandmother's eyes was telling. She wanted me to fulfill her goal. Even though her goal has become my goal since that day, it is not until recently, when I finally realized what her ultimate goal was. She always feared the tension arousing in Korean Peninsula, yet what she really feared was, those forgotten children who still face poverty, death, diseases, and crimes that she had faced in the war-time. She wanted me to look around the world from a different perspective that can recognize the existence of such children in today's world.
*In this modern era, when most people are acquainted with convenience and wealth, people are unaware of those children who are still suffering from seemly 'primal' difficulties. It is my responsibility to realize the adversities that exist around the world. My special backgrounds- having an airforce father of country where the war is still going on and grandmother who is a North Korean refugee- surely motivated me to look on international issues more profoundly. Nevertheless, from this point, it is I who need to actually continue to study global concerns and prevent many disastrous events from occurring again in some part of this world. There should be no more 'my grandmother,' who fears the tension, does not receive an appropriate education, and suffers combat fatigue, in this world.
