Oh, no. he has done it again. He has gotten a detention for the second time. Why? It’s because he has done the serious crime: speaking his words in Korean at the school.
Walking up the stairs with my friend, talking about a foreign drama that we were watching all night, I got too excited and spoke in the forbidden language. “Maja, Maja! (??, ??!)” I said, and before I even move on to the next word, I felt someone tapping my shoulder. I looked back. A teacher (whom I never have seen before) was displaying a big evil smile on her face. She asked for my name; therefore I answered, and she wrote it down on her yellow folder, the list of criminals.
I, as a citizen of Republic of Korea, have the freedom of speech, the liberty of expression. However my personal rights and freedom had been trespassed by the school policy. No-Korean-speaking-at-school-policy shows no respect not only towards the Korean language itself, yet towards the students who owns preserved rights.
The major reason for establishing this no-Korean-speaking-rule is to encourage students to speak English so that they can prepare for their school years in American universities. However, as high school students we are capable of preparing our own future and managing our own behaviors. Those who don’t act maturely without thinking deeply will face failure in the future. Tough, but that’s real world where one should be responsible for oneself. Although guiding its students by using certain rules is one of the roles of school, imagining students’ rights cannot be considered as guiding, but controlling the students using authorities.

“Try a bite of this dried saury! Green tea flavor has been added.” An old lady arranged a table with a plate full of sliced raw fish in front of her fish restaurant, as if she was serving sample to people in a supermarket. Soon, her loud voice began to draw people’s attention. In Guryongpo, dried fish is now in season. From house to house, dried fish, instead of laundry, were hanging with their mouths tied to strings under the winter sunlight. This unique scenery presented as a part of the whole picture of the winter beach.

On the eastern edge of the boundary of Korea, which forms a shape of a tiger, you will meet Guryongpo. The gulf located between the tiger’s back and tail is called Youngil. It has served as an efficient port throughout the history with the support of natural conditions, leading prosperous fishing industry. The Eastern Sea is also well known for its clean seawater due to frequent tidal current; this serves as an essential reason for its fish being recognized as one of the best.

Guryongpo as a firm base for fishery provides 80 percent of fish including squids, mackerel pikes, and scombroid. Although the ocean is considered as a gift of nature, there is nothing else near the region for its residents to rely on except the sea.            “You need to work in order to feed yourself. We have to go out to the ocean despite nausea and fatigue.” said Keun-yi Kim, a 67-year-old fisherman who has lived in Guryongpo for a half century. Almost everyone living in Guryongpo does work that is closely related to the fishing industry: people actually catch fish, sell fish, or process captured fish.

Neither a person nor an accident gave me a serious physical-injury. Again, no “physical”-injury. Yet I once received a severe mental-wound by a keen blade of words. The sharp edge came out from my best friends’ mouths and hacked me into pieces.

I had attended a small middle school with little number of students in each grade. Being in a group was everything and staying next to friends was so crucial. For sure, I had belonged to the group in which each of us was too afraid to be independent. One day, unexpectedly I heard two of my best friends disparaging me—they didn’t notice that I was hearing their conversation. Cursing and swearing, they were talking about my rumors that made nonsense. I felt ridiculous about their stupidity—how could they not think of me hearing their conversation by any chance?

I never told them that I heard the conversation. Although they didn’t show me any negative attitude toward me directly, I still felt dreg of anger from their betrayal. I stopped myself placing myself between them. At first, I was extremely angry at them. However the feeling slowly transformed and became an intense grief. I had put faith in them, but they betrayed my trust. As a young naïve girl, I felt my heart getting torn down. I cried so much and I felt an extreme “loneliness”. I was afraid to feel that.

“Loneliness”—people seem to be afraid to possess such feeling. We all do. We all try to fit ourselves in a safe zone—a boring safe zone where we can loose our peculiarity, characteristics, and identity in order to blend with others.

The term “loneliness” does not mean something negative to me anymore. The time of being lonely was time for me to learn how to stand up independently.

I had lost two friends yet earned myself—what a happy ending.

A woman blubbers with immense amount of teardrops trickling down her cheeks. Then, I start crying as well. If she falls in love in an attractive young man, then I love also begin to love him. The woman is me; and I am the woman for about two hours. She is on the screen while I am sitting down on a red-colored chair.

Despite all the differences we have, I become the actress. To be more precise, I become the character while watching a movie. I am not a blonde like the beautiful lady on the screen. I have neither large eyes nor handsome nose as those of hers. However two of us are together since the beginning of the movie, and I see all the happenings from the character’s lenses. I face utterly new experiences by not only looking at the screen, but actually become part of the whole film.

To make me happy, not many things are required. A large bag of popcorn in my left hand with a cup of light-coke in the other hand, a huge screen with advanced audio system in front of me, and couple of friends sitting next to me—these are all I need to transform myself as a totally different person seeking for a brand new world that I have never faced before. A cinema is nothing else but a heaven. I see, feel, and become the film itself—it is how I enjoy watching movies.

Some people say the world is corrupted, full of evil, depraved. However the warmth, or the humanity, still continues its powerful heartbeat in this harsh, cold world. Recently, I was impressed by certain people’s love and their strength.

I volunteered my services for an international organization—helping people in foreign land such as Africa—named “World Vision”. The organization’s main role was to assign each Korean sponsor a foreign child who needs financial help. Then the sponsors supported their assigned children financially and developed relationship with the children by exchanging letters. My job there was to translate the letters written in Korean by sponsors into English or the other way around—translating English letters into Korean. Last Monday was the first day for me to go into the office and actually perform my duty. My task was quite simple; yet it was not a trifling job at all.

There was total number of fifteen thousand people in Seoul sponsoring the poor kids. I was astonished by its fairly big number; however this number, although surprising, was not the thing that made me feel the warmness with my heart. There was one letter written by a sponsor with relatively long length and a piece of yellow Post-it on the top. At first I was busy, translating the letter into English; therefore I did not really pay attention to the Post-it. The content of letter was not so unique or different from other letters, including the three common substances that all the other letters included: complimentary comments about the kid’s cute appearance (I guess all the children have sent their own pictures), questions asking for the child’s health, and an apology for writing back so late. As I finished the translation, I looked at the Post-it unconsciously, read the notes, and couldn’t stop myself from being extremely emotional. What that small note saying was very touching. It said that the one who wrote this letter is not an actual sponsor, yet a new owner of the house where the real sponsor was living it. The sponsor had moved out; however the new owner had no way to contact him. Therefore, she, an ahjuma who wrote the letter and the note, received the letter written by 8-year-old African kid instead of the original sponsor. After reading the letter and looking the child’s picture, she felt something deep inside her heart. Then she decided to become a new sponsor for the kid, replacing the original one’s spot.

What a beautiful world it is. How beautiful the people we live with are. She did not pay a significant amount of money. Most of the sponsors, according to the letters, are not very wealthy. Yet they are taking care of the ones who are given less privilege than them, providing the poor kids with financial help with their best. These people do have warm hearts, they do appreciate what they are given, and they are the true happy ones, I thought.