An Immigration Story: Part VIII

There were many people I befriended in middle school, some of whom I no longer associate myself with. There was a time, however, when I was in a very odd stage of losing my heritage. I only listened to western music (meaning pop, hip-hop, R&B, rock, etc.) and never even considered listening to Korean music whatsoever. I scoffed at those who had just come from Korea; we called them FOB’s (fresh off the boat) and teased them endlessly. I had become so attached to Canadian culture that I lost my Korean heritage. I rarely spoke Korean at home, only to my parents, and let’s face it: who speaks to their parents for more than five minutes when you’re thirteen? It was evident that my literacy in Korean was slowly fading away. This was not known to me at the time, but it did eventually dawn on me that I wrote my thoughts down on paper, in English. I needed an improvement, but I had no Korean friends apart from a few who I was not very close to at the time. I did not have a large interest in their group of Korean friends that seemed to be laughing at things I found highly idiotic. I was a snob to those who spoke my first language and had no interest in my culture.

My non-Korean friends, which consisted of 95% of the friends I had, laughed at the Korean FOB’s with me and we had a grand time being exclusive. We had the world at our feet and we were going through puberty – we were invincible. I had a lot of trouble with my parents at home because I rarely came out of my room and tended to blast “loud and disgusting music” they could not bear listening to. My brothers always walked into my room and read my very personal journals and made fun of me, took things without asking, and made my life a living hell. My older brother tended to have a revolution against my dad from time to time, and my younger brother followed without questioning his reason. I suffered in the middle because I had no reason to rebel against my dad. Sure, we had our differences, but I was willing to accept that and move forward with my life. It wasn’t a rare occasion my dad would become extremely sensitive about our behaviour (some could even say he was irritated by our presence at times) and throw a rather violent temper tantrum. He was quite the dramatic male and my brothers and I were constant victims of the release of his frustration at the world. But it had become common, and if anything, his anger management issues were decreasing with each year.

An Immigration Story: Part VII

Due to unfortunate circumstances, I now have to move my immigration story to my personal blog... I hope those of you that have been following my story to continue, although it may not seem as official (since it's no longer on the Law Firm's website). Thanks for reading! :)

The second mishap consisted of a girl named Stacey. She was a very mature looking black girl that got in trouble for small things every day. She liked to bother people in class, especially the quiet kids. She was definitely interested in me, because I was a new student and I was fairly quiet for the first couple of days. She picked on me and took my pencils and pens without asking and just smiled coyly when I was looking at her, astounded there was such a person who dared to take things without asking, in Canada! She was really just a bully that nobody really liked, and she wanted attention from the class. She liked to sing Alicia Keys’ and Beyonce’s songs aloud, and when I laughed at her for being silly, her face turned very somber. She would ask me what was so funny about her singing. I responded I have never heard that song before, so she would go back to singing her songs, because I didn’t know what songs she was singing anyways. She wasn’t the only black person in class, but she was the only mean black girl in class. She wouldn’t listen to anybody when they told her to stop being silly and behave herself, she wouldn’t pay attention to the teachers when they would talk to her in private, and she never listened to me when I would ask kindly for her to return whatever she took from me. I was quite angry one time and I marched right up to her to say, “Give me back my pen! It’s not yours and I didn’t give you permission to use it!” She looked at me curiously and smiled, cockily. She laughed by herself for a bit, and to my surprise, she returned my pen. I said thank you and returned to my seat. She kept staring at me for the rest of the class and I had a feeling she was beginning to like me. Surely she knew better than to assume I would become good friends with her, after harassing me so many times like that. But she did like me, and after that, she never touched my things. She started to yell at me from across the hall saying hi, and patting me on the back (pretty hard, too!) with her abnormal strength. She was an amusing person that did not know how to interact with others if she wanted to become their friend. She was so used to bullying everybody, it was hard for her to fit in as a normal girl. I did not help her, but she did stay out of trouble for a while. I’ll never know if that were due to me standing up to her or something that changed inside her. Either way, Stacey was never amongst the best of my friends, but I accepted her for who she was: a coy girl who really just wanted acceptance from her classmates through means of bullying and harassing others.