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Narrative

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Submitted By desparatestudent
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my school life.
When I first came to SAS, the only English phrase that I can say was “I don’t know”. While it was my first day to school, it was the first day back to school from the winter break for everyone else. Everyone knew each other, knew their ways around the school and knew each other’s names very well. I felt like an absolute outcast, facing a high brick wall that separated myself from the rest of the class. Compared to other students, the wall was higher and seemed more impossible to overcome to me since I was unable to communicate. Unlike how I was back in Korea, I changed into a reserved child, unwilling to express my thoughts and opinions. To a 6 year old girl, this sudden change in environment was a bit too much to handle; however, even though I was young, I realized that my life would never go back to how it was in the past, and that I will have to find a way to conform to the norm of the situation I am set in. As time passed by, I got used to the SAS community and managed to adapt to the three cultural influences that I was receiving: American in school, Chinese out of school, Korean at home. Little by little, I opened myself to the people around me. Noticing the change in my attitude, my classmates approached me and asked for my name. Like a robot, I would reply, “My name is Jung Hyun Yoon.” No matter how many times I would say it, they asked again the very next day or say it with a weird pronunciation. I absolutely could not understand why in the world they cannot say it correctly! I would correct them every time, “Jung Hyun! Not Joong Hyeun! My name is Jung Hyun!” Of course, they failed to fix it.
I asked my mom in frustration,
“Mom, why can’t they pronounce my name correctly? It’s such a simple name.”
“Jung Hyun, not everyone speaks the same way as we do.”
“But it’s such a simple name!” Rising to first grade, I was separated from my fellow classmates and had to take ESOL instead of Chinese class, learning the very basics of English, such as how to pronounce the “–th” sound and the “v” sound or write without confusing “b” with “d”. As I took ESOL, I finally understood what my mom told me, that people do not speak the same way. Some words that Americans say effortlessly, I had to practice thousands of times with my teacher, and learn to control every muscle of my mouth to say it correctly. The fact that I had to try so hard to do something others can do so effortlessly made me devastated, causing me to face one of the earliest obstacles of my life. Hearing my first grade teacher also having trouble with pronouncing my name, I came to a decision – I need to get an English name. I understood that she had trouble with pronouncing my name properly and she did not intend to do so. I talked with my mom about me getting an English name. My mom suggested that I should think it over again, not to take it lightly, for it might be something that I will be called as for rest of my life. I was firm with my decision; I knew that I was sick of being called Joong Hyeun or in some other ridiculous way and I did not want to make anyone feel bad for pronouncing my name incorrectly. I was so determined that it felt like that moment will be my only chance to get myself a new name; if I miss it and I will never be able to find myself an English name. Finding my new name was a long but simple process. From a typical Korean family with no previous American influence, I had no idea of what I should name myself. I “studied” my friend’s names, getting an idea of what kinds of names are “American” and easy to pronounce. I looked through my kindergarten yearbook for any nice names that suits me. I searched for any possible source with names, failing every time to find a satisfying name. The Internet of Shanghai in 2002 was not the best method of communication so I did not bother to try. Suddenly, a box of DVDs caught my sight. I started to leaf through the DVD covers that I had, stopping every now and then to pull out few with names in the title. Looking into the piles of DVD covers with names within the title, I started to filter those that did not start with “J” out. When I got down to 10 DVDs, I called my mom to help me with final decision. As I spread out the DVDs, one in particular caught my eyes

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