Dede

Roy Kim English12 Roy Kim' Jung Kack Kim' 김정각' When babies are born, they get their name and use it for their entire life. For me it was different. My life starts in America, in California. When I was born, I had an American citizen passport with my name Roy. My name didn’t have any meaning to it; my name was Roy because my mom loved Roy Rogers. It was shocking when I figured out my name was after a cowboy. However, I was raised like an American and went to an American public school. Nothing was different from me and the other kids. After living for 11 years in the States, one phone call utterly changed my life. My grandfather was sick, so we had to go back to Korea. That phone call from Korea banged my head like a hammer. I was Korean' Where is Korea' Do we drive there' Did I have a grandfather' These questions were floating through my mind while my parents were packing our entire lives into boxes. I didn’t have the concept of a “different country”. Even though I was ignorant of the Korean culture, I had to go to a Korean school until my grandfather got better. First day of school is hard for anybody; however, first day of school in another country was horrific. Even not knowing how to say “hi”, I walked my way to school holding my dad’s hand. Every single thing was different from my last school. All the students looked the same, there were no people with yellow hair, no skate broads, and not even one kid was speaking my language. The language that the kids were talking heard stupid and it sounded like a song, not a language. The teacher introduced me to my class and told everyone that I didn’t speak Korean. All of my class members laughed and hated me. Going to school was like going to hell full of little devils trying to kill me. My stomach didn’t even want to go to school. In Korea, Roy was a funny name. I don’t know why; however I was bullied every day didn’t have any friends, and everybody called me “fake Korean”. After my parents figured out the problem about my being bullied, they gave a Korean name. Jung Kack Kim. After living In Korea for four years, I adapted to my devilish classmates. They got nicer and because I was learning their language, they got closer to me. For four years I tried hard and did my best to adapt in Korea; however I moved to Canada and my journey started all over again. My two names make my identification confused. Am I Roy Kim or 김정각'