Facing Poverty with a Rich Girl’s Habits By Suki Kim Professor Michelle James English 115 April 18, 2016
The short essay “Facing Poverty with a Rich Girl’s Habit” written by Suki Kim starts out in the early 80’s. Suki and her family came to America from Korea because her father lost his business and in Korea you could be placed in jail for bankruptcy. Suki and her family stayed in a house that belonged to another Korean family. Suki thought the house was ugly. There in the house she met her first playmates Billy and Andy. They spoke English and she learned to speak from them. One of the first term she learned from being around them was F.O.B(Fresh off the Boat). She couldn’t understand what they meant, but she was pretty sure she flew on a plane from Korea.
Being in America life changed for her, from having people do things for her such as laundry to her being chaffureffed everywhere. Now she had to do all things as she said “Each week I found it humiliating to wheel out dirty clothes to a bleak place called the laundromat”. (Kim,2002 para.3)
Manners and being respectful were taught to all Korean school children, but here in America kids didn’t bow, girls wore skimpy clothing and made out with boys in class. The school also was different, graffiti on the walls, guards at the front doors with metal detectors to check book bags.
Suki found that she had little in common with her fellow Koreans. She realized that they were put into separate classes like back home in Korea. You had the wealthy Koreans and then you had the poor ones. So when it came to schools it was either private or public. So off to public school she went.
Coming from Korea she could not speak English so she would watch reruns of tv shows such as Three’s Company. “Thinking the whole time that John Ritter was running a firm called Three’s. I stayed up until dawn to make sense of “Great Expectations”. (Kim,2002, para. 10)
Most her of fond memories was back in Korea. Having a life that most little girls dream of such as maids to take of you anywhere and living in a mansion all was just memory. Seeing her mother who used to be a part of society high, now getting ready to go work at the fish market as a fish filleter. Her life got better, she became an interpreter at The Family Assistance Center during the 9/11 attacks and saw Billy who was looking for his brother Andy who was in the towers at the time.
Suki Kim had a lot of things to overcome when her family had to move to America. She had to deal with the language barrier and culture shock, and even traditions from Korea. All of her problems became small on 9/11 and her life was really changed forever.
Figures