Facing poverty with a rich girl’s habit
Adele Strader
Professor Chryst
English Composition
October 22, 2012

Facing poverty with a rich girl’s habit was written by Suki Kim and published in the New York Times on November 21, 2004. The most important point that Suki want to make was that (1) what we have in life can be taken away in an instant (2) do not go bankrupt in South Korea (3) that a person must adapt and endure through the trials and tribulations in their life and (4) that no matter what you have or don’t’ have in life you must always be true to yourself.
Some of the other main points in this story are that Suki’s father owned shipping, mining and hotel companies in South Korea and that the Kim family was millionaires who lived in a mansion on top of a hill surrounded by ponds, peacocks and orchards with chauffeurs and maids. They had lived in a society were money, education and family history dictated who you were and how you lived. “Gone in an instant was my small world, made possible by my father’s shipping company, mining business and hotels. In queens, most of my E.S.L. classmates came from our families who had escaped Korea’s ridge class hierarchy, one dictated by education level, family background and financial status”, (2004, pgs. 62-63). Suki’s family has to flee South Korea because her father went bankrupt and in South Korea bankruptcy is a crime punishable by jail time so the family immigrated to New York. Arriving in Queens in the early 80’s Suki’s family was penniless; they had to share a two story brownstone in Woodside with a Korean family that ran a dry cleaner in Harlem. Suki’s made friends with Billy and Andy the sons of the family that ran the dry cleaners. The first word she learned in English was “fresh off the boat” (F.O.B.). She wondered why people would say that about her when she arrived in New